


The Winchester Boys and the Tremors of Doom

by 9Tiptoes, Zara_Zee



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, SPN Season 1, Show level violence, case!fic, tremors - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-14
Updated: 2013-10-09
Packaged: 2017-12-28 16:39:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 37,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/994163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/9Tiptoes/pseuds/9Tiptoes, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zara_Zee/pseuds/Zara_Zee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You know what we need? Shore leave.”<br/>Having just finished up an emotionally-taxing case in upstate New York, Dean decides that the Winchester brothers deserve a little ‘quality R & R’, so he talks Sam into a pilgrimage to Vegas. A road trip along scenic, historical Route 66 lands them in a ‘living Ghost town’ in northern Arizona, but what started out as a short layover to enjoy the local entertainment quickly develops into something more sinister when a couple of teens go missing. The Winchesters join in the hunt for the missing kids and soon find themselves on a case that’s bizarre, even for them; a case that could’ve come straight out of one of the sci-fi movie matinees that Dean used to drag Sam to as a kid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: If you recognize them, they are not ours. The SPN characters belong to the CW and Eric Kripke…We’re just borrowing them, for fun, not profit, and promise to return them in more-or-less original condition once we’ve finished playing…  
> Spoilers: Not really. Some references to episode 1.19 Provenance.  
> Warnings: Show level violence, OC character deaths, references to IEDs, explosions
> 
> Authors’ notes and Thank-yous:  
> Thank you to [Missevelina](http://missevelina.livejournal.com) for beta reading and comma wrangling. We appreciate you taking time out from studying for the LSAT to be our beta reader. Good luck and just remember; Sammy scored 174. No pressure. :-)  
> We offer our endless gratitude to [Cassiopeia7](http://cassiopeia7.livejournal.com) for her boundless enthusiasm for this project, for just *getting* the B-movie feel we were aiming for, for her hours and hours and hours of painstaking animation work (on Live Journal the maps actually move!!!), and for sharing our love of casually slipped-in Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Tremors and Dune references. Deb, you were an absolute pleasure to work with and your artwork is simply stunning! Please, everyone check out the [Art Masterpost](http://cassiopeia7.livejournal.com/360828.html) and tell her how awesome her art is! :-)  
> Thanks are also due to [ReapertownUSA](http://reapertownusa.livejournal.com) for giving us a challenge specifically for stories that don’t focus on a romantic pairing. There seems to be less and less gen every year, so thank you for providing this outlet.

Seventeen-year-old Lucas Massina and his buddy, Brian, had been riding the fence all morning long on their dirt bikes, checking the fence line of the Massinas’ cattle lot. The lot and surrounding land stretched out over 760 acres of scrubland with a small herd of cattle; one bull,  eighteen cows and thirteen spring calves—except one of the cows hadn’t come in the night before.

Normally Carlos Massina, Luke’s father, might suspect that she’d gone out in search of privacy for calving, but it was the wrong time of year and she wasn’t pregnant. So he’d sent his son and his friend out to search for her and bring her in.

There was, of course, the concern of the occasional coyote or the even more rare mountain lion that came down from the hills to hunt, but even working in a pack, the coyotes would be hard pressed to carry a 1200 pound adult cow over the fence line without some tell-tale sign. And if she couldn’t be taken from the lot, there should be a carcass. 760 acres wasn’t that much land to check.

Using their dirt bikes, Luke and his friend had scoured all of the land and had turned up no carcass of any kind; no blood; no buzzards overhead signaling sun-cooked flesh; nothing. They’d found nothing at all until…

“Luke! You better come look at this.”

Luke turned sharply at the sound of his friend’s voice on the dry wind. Sixty yards down the fence line stood Brian, waving Luke down.

“What is it?” Luke hollered.

“Just come look, will ya?” Brian shouted back, shaking his head in exasperation.

With a kick, Luke brought his motorbike to life, throwing dirt and rocks as he tore across the dry lot to where Brian was waiting for him. He cut the engine and dismounted the bike, gasping when the heel of his boot sank two inches into the unusually soft ground beneath him.

“What the Hell?” he muttered. He stepped back and frowned, examining the pillowed dirt beneath his feet. It wasn’t uncommon to find burrows in the sun-scorched ground; small animals often dug their dens into the earth to escape the day’s heat, but this was unlike anything he’d seen on their property; a long tubular mound of dirt that trailed back toward the fence, like a groundhog tunnel, but bigger. Much bigger.  

“Hello, did I lose you?” Brian asked, snapping his fingers in front of Luke’s face. “I need you to look at this. I think this might be the clue we’ve been looking for.”

Luke tracked Brian’s gesture towards the fence and frowned. A clue, indeed. It was a 4x4 inch by six foot fence post, one that he had helped to put in himself, and it was lying clear over on its side. No way was anyone pulling that post out of the ground, not without some heavy machinery anyway. He and his father had buried those posts over two foot into the ground…they weren’t budging.

“Well? What do you make of this? Think maybe she just walked away?”

“What for? Not in search of food or water.” Luke shook his head in disagreement. “Animals are smart, man. She knows she’s got food, water and protection here on the farm. She’s not going out there,” he thumbed out into the desert hills. “Not without a damn good reason.”

“Maybe somethin’ chased her. I mean look at this fence, it’s all but laying on the ground. Sure looks like it’s been knocked over to me. It coulda been a stampede.”

“A stampede, Brian? Really? One cow. That’s one helluva stampede man. Besides, that post wasn’t knocked over, it was uprooted, like someone came along and pushed it out from underneath.”

“’Well then, maybe somebody stole her.”

“Again…one cow? Why even bother? Plus there’s no tire tracks here but our own. No, I don’t think she was stolen.”

“Well, what then? A cow just doesn’t up and disappear without a trace.”

“Right.” Luke removed the cowboy hat from his head and ran the back of his hand over his forehead, swiping at the sweat that was gathering at his hairline. He pushed the excess blond locks away from his face and settled his hat back into place firmly. “Let’s umm… Hell, I don’t know.”

He looked around him and his eyes once again caught on the displaced earth that formed a rather large tunnel pointed directly at the uprooted fence post.

“I say we follow this tunnel; see where it takes us. Maybe it’ll lead us to this God forsaken cow.”

“You’re the boss…or, well,” Brian smiled, smacking Luke on the arm playfully, “the boss’s kid, anyhow.”

They pushed their bikes over the downed fence wire, carefully avoiding the barbs with their tires, and then kick-started their engines; the raspy sound echoing loudly across the desert as they sped off toward the hills in the far distance.


	2. Chapter One

 

 

 

Sam slid into the passenger seat of the Impala, closing the door behind him with a final-sounding thud.

“We headin’ out?” Dean asked.

Sam nodded, and then turned his head to wave goodbye to Sarah who was still standing on the doorstep of the auction house with her arms folded.

Dean picked out an Iron Maiden cassette from his box of tapes and shoved it into the slot. He put the car into gear and peeled away from the curb to the opening bars of _Piece of Mind_. 

Sam sighed and slumped against the window, the side of his head resting against the glass.

Dean glanced sideways, trying to gauge his brother’s mood. Sam had always forged deep connections with people; had always found it hard to just walk away, and Dean wondered for a moment if it had been a mistake to shove the kid at Sarah. He cleared his throat.

“So. Sarah. Classy chick, huh?”

Sam smiled sadly. “Yeah. She is.”

Dean turned his head and eyed Sam thoughtfully before returning his attention to the road.  “You really liked her, didn't you?”

Sam shrugged. “Yeah. I did. For all the good it did either of us. I put her at risk, Dean. Because of me, she could’ve died and…” Sam rubbed a hand over his creased forehead. “And then I had to leave her.  I put her at risk and then I left her. And the way we live, it’s always gonna be like that. So really…what’s the point?”

Dean restrained an eye roll. This was vintage Sam, always overthinking everything. “So what?” he said, “You're gonna be a monk from now on?”

Sam straightened in his seat and glared at Dean. “You know what, Dean? No. We are not having this conversation.” He reached forward and turned the music up.

Dean turned it back down. “Driver picks the—”

“You picked the damn music! I just turned it up!”

He reached for the volume control again and Dean slapped his hand away. “Yeah, well, driver picks the volume too, so shut your cakehole.”

Sam produced an epic bitch-face and then folded his arms across his chest.

They sat in silence until the tension was so thick in the air that Dean couldn’t stand it anymore.

 

“You know what we need?” he said, “Shore leave.”

“Shore leave?”

“Yeah, you know. A little quality R & R. Play a little poker, a few games of darts; earn ourselves some bank. Eat some pie. Drink the odd six-pack or two. Hook up with a few women with loose morals…the type who _want_ you to leave them…you know what I'm sayin', Sammy?” Dean waggled his eyebrows. “I think it's time we hit Vegas again, little brother.”

“Or,” Sam said, in the ‘I’m talking to a toddler’ voice that pissed Dean off so, so much, “we could go to Atlantic City which is a helluva lot closer.”

“Yeah,” Dean retorted, mimicking his brother’s tone, “but they've got legal brothels in Vegas.”

“They’re not _in_ LasVegas, Dean. They’re about an hour north of Vegas.”

Dean chuckled. “But you _do_ know about them. Sammy, you sly dog.”

Sam scowled impressively. “Everybody knows about them. But I’ve never been to one. I don't pay for sex, Dean.”

Well of course he didn’t. Winchesters didn’t need to pay for sex. They could if they wanted to, of course, if it was just easier in the circumstances, but they didn’t _need_ to because Winchesters were hot enough to walk into any bar and walk out again with the sexiest woman in there, like that time in—

 “So, we’re agreed? That’s a ‘no’ to Vegas?” Sam interrupted his thoughts.

Dean pouted, just a little. “Oh c'mon Sammy…it’s Vegas. Remember Vegas?”

Sam’s resolve softened just a little, and he turned away to hide the slight smile that touched his lips at the memory.

~~~

It had been April 25th 2001 and their father had left them holed up in a little motel just off of Interstate 15, near Moapa. He, meanwhile; had gone on the hunt for a skinwalker that was wreaking havoc on the small band of Paiute who lived on the Moapa River Indian Reservation. The job should have been cut and dried, but as it turned out, 112 square miles of Reservation was a lot of land to cover.

The remainder of April had come and gone; the days had flashed by like the hot sun that scorched the Mojave. And with each passing day, Sam and Dean had become more and more bored, until finally come May 1st, Sam was fit to be tied.

“He’s gonna miss my birthday,” he had whined, crossing his arms. “ _Again_.”

“What’s the big deal?” Dean had asked. He had then ducked his head when Sam had glowered back at him. “I mean besides the fact that it’s your 18th…jeesh, grumpy. He missed mine too, you know.”

“This year, Dean, but not last year. No, last year he took you on a three-day bender for your 21st birthday.”

“Oh yeah.” Dean had nodded his head, smiling, “Good times.”

“For you, maybe. Not for me. I ended up being the designated driver who had to come drag your asses out of the bar, and I don’t know if you know this, but Dad’s a brick when he’s passed out. An-and you? You puked on me…twice!”

“Aww, I’m sorry, Sammy. I didn’t mean it. Lemme make it up to you.”

Sam had eyed his brother suspiciously, and asked, “How?”

~~~

“Ahhhh, Vegas. I remember that being a very good time.”

“You actually remember it?” Sam scoffed.

“I remember!” Dean fired back. “I remember you being pissed that Dad was gonna miss your birthday, and me—awesome big brother that I am—took you to Vegas for your birthday.”

“My _eighteenth_ birthday, man.  I wasn’t even old enough to get into half those places, except maybe the theme park at Circus Circus.”

“So what? I got you in, didn’t I? What was that show we went and saw at the Harrah? The topless one with the on-stage lap dances?”

“Skintight.”

Dean snapped his fingers. “That’s the one. See, you do remember. That was a great time; the last really fun thing we did as brothers before you…Well anyway, if you don't want go back to Vegas, I guess that's cool.”

Dean didn’t have the puppy dog eyes, but he was a professional pouter and he put that skill to good use now. Sam sighed. “It's a three day drive, at least.”

Dean’s face lit up in a hopeful grin. He might have to work at it, but Sam was going to let himself be talked into going to Vegas, despite his better judgement of course.

“Dude,” he said, “My baby can make the Vegas Run in less than twelve parsecs… 

Sam sniggered and nodded at a police cruiser that was coming up on the driver's side of the car. “Let's just try to avoid any imperial entanglements,” he said.

Dean grinned. “So that's a ‘yes’ to Vegas?”

Sam pursed his lips. “I don’t know, Dean. It just seems like we could be doing something more productive, like—”

“Look, I’ll make you a deal. You agree to Vegas, and we can stop anywhere you want on the way there.”

Sam cocked his head to one side and raised an eyebrow. “Anywhere?”

“Anywhere. It’ll be just like when we were kids and Dad used to take us to all those stupid roadside attractions. Hell, we could even hit Cawker City, Kansas if you want. I know how much you love that big-ass ball of twine.”

“Shut up. I do not.”

“Who are you kidding? You were always a sucker for that crap.”

Sam shook his head. “No, if I’m gonna agree to this, then I don’t want corny crap like a baseball diamond in the middle of a cornfield. I want real sites.”

“Like what?”

“Historical stuff, like Gettysburg.”

Dean raised an incredulous eyebrow. “With all those spirits? That’s too much like work, Sammy. New rule: No place with any ties to the Civil War. That pretty much cuts out most everything east of the Mississippi.”

Sam pouted. “Fine. The Rockies.”

“No way. I am not goin’ on some granola munchin’ hike with you, just so we can get eaten by a bear. Has to be some place civilized.”

Sam frowned, pursing and twisting his lips as he considered his options. “I’m gonna have to think about this,” he said after a moment. Dean raised his hand to the road, silently arguing the fact that they were already on the road and Sam had better hurry his ass if he wanted to pick his ‘real sites’.

“Just get us through Pennsylvania. I’ll have it all figured out by then.”

By mid-morning, they were driving through the tunnels on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Sam was sitting sideways on the long bench seat with a ragged-looking road atlas spread out before him on the seat. He had one leg pulled up and a small Mag Lite stuck between his teeth while he took notes, scratching out directions into a spiral notebook he’d found in his pack.

Beside him, Dean was leaned back in his seat, enjoying the ebb and flow of his car over the asphalt, and bobbing his head along to the steady beat of _All Right Now_ playing on his cassette player. He spared his brother a glance and smirked, bemused by Sam’s deep concentration.

“What’re you studying so hard on there, Professor?”

“Not studying,” Sam answered around the end of the flashlight. “Thinking.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. Thinking about what?”

Sam spat out the flashlight and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “I’m just thinking that instead of cutting across Kansas, we could head south, follow the 44 into Tulsa and over, and then hit the Hoover Dam on the way into Nevada.”

Dean frowned, rolling his head sideways to give his brother a dull, slack-jawed look of disgust. “The Hoover Dam?  Yawn.  What happened to us going through Cawker? I thought you liked that big ball of string.”

“Twine,” Sam corrected, without looking up from his map, “and I never said I liked it. It was just something ‘different’ to do when we were kids. You’re the one that liked goin’ there cuz of that girl. What was her name again? Bobbie Lynn Dexter?”

“Tammy. Lynn. Baxter.”

“Same difference. She only liked you for one reason, Dean.”

“Yeah, well, it was the same reason I liked her,” Dean grinned and waggled his eyebrows.

“Classy. Hell, for all you know, Tammy Lynn Baxter could be married three times over by now with 5 kids, one of which is yours.” Sam looked up from beneath his overly long bangs, raised an eyebrow and challenged, “Shall we go and find out?”

“No.”

Pulling an unhappy face, Dean turned his eyes back to the road and drove in silence, pointedly ignoring Sam’s mischievous grin. Sam’s smile didn’t last long; fading quickly when it became apparent that Dean didn’t want to ‘play’ anymore. Sam felt kind of bad, then. It probably hadn’t been the best decision to tease Dean about long, lost children when they themselves _were_ long, lost children…of sorts.

“Hey, maybe we could head on over to Chicago and jump on the _historical_ Route 66, ride it all the way there,” Sam offered in way of an apology. “Think of all the cool stops along the way.”

It was like dangling a piece of meat in front of a dog, and Dean pursed his lips and tapped his fingers along the steering wheel as he considered the bargain.

“My Baby on old Route 66? Hmmm. The whole way?” he asked, glancing at Sam.

“The whole way…until we turn off to head north on 93.”

Dean chewed it over carefully. Hoover Dam was a small – albeit geeky – price to pay for getting the opportunity to put his Baby on the ‘Mother Road’. Yeah, no contest.

“Okay, deal.”

The course was easy enough to plot. I80 to Chicago, crash at a motel. Be waiting at the door when Gino’s East opened the next day so they could get some Chicago Deep Dish before leaving – that had been Sam’s idea. Catch Route 66 there and drive until they hit St. Louis. Eat an early supper and crash there. Take off around midnight and drive straight through Oklahoma and the northern tip of Texas to Albuquerque, New Mexico. It would be a helluva drive, but one they could split between them, taking it in turns. Plus they were used to long hours in the car. From Albuquerque, they’d cross Arizona, finally leaving the ‘Mother Road’ for US 93 and the last leg of the journey leading them to Boulder City and the Hoover Dam. From there, it was just a hop, skip and a jump to Vegas.

A four day trip from New York State to Nevada for a weekend of the glitz, glamour and girls of Las Vegas – it may not have been Dean’s best idea ever, but they’d driven further for less, and after everything they’d been through the past twelve months, they deserved it.

Including the St Louis layover in the route had been Dean’s idea. It probably would have been a lot easier on them to drive a bit further that second day, but back when they were kids they’d passed by a Route 66-themed motel just outside of the Gateway City a few times and Dean had been captivated. Their Dad, though, had adamantly refused to stay at it, despite the advertised chrome beds made to look like 50s style classic cars and Dean’s desperate pleading that his life wouldn’t be complete if he wasn’t allowed to sleep in one of them.

When they finally entered the motel room—sixteen years after Dean first set his heart on staying there— Sam was forced to choke back his laughter as Dean went through an age regression right before his eyes. His brother whooped like an excited ten year old and ran, diving head first into the nearest bed which just happened to look a lot like a ’55 Cadillac Series 62. Dean bounced on his knees and then flopped over on his back with a wide, satisfied smile.

“Dibbs,” he called.

Sam grinned; his body shaking with silent laughter and his smile lighting him up from the inside in a way that hadn’t happened since before leaving Palo Alto. Maybe this trip wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

At midnight, Sam and Dean were back on the road, heading further south. They’d determined that Sam would drive the first eight hour shift and Dean, the second eight hours. It was just before sun-up the next morning when Dean saw it, lit up like a Christmas tree against the silver-grey of the predawn sky. They were about half an hour outside of Oklahoma City, and Pops—a tourist-trap convenience store which sold sodas in hundreds of different flavors—wasn’t a place they’d planned to stop. Dean insisted, though, arguing that he absolutely could not pass it up. “C’mon, Sammy. Look at that! It’s got a soda bottle the size of a space shuttle out front.” And really, who could argue with that kind of logic? Three hours later—give or take—Dean pointed out a sign for Cadillac Ranch near Amarillo, Texas. Sam agreed and they spent the next twenty minutes posing like tourists for cheesy photos with the vertically positioned and purposefully vandalized cars, even adding a bit of their own brand of graffiti.  Sam wrote: _For a good time, call…_ and included Dean’s phone number. Dean grinned when he saw it, and then dragged Sam around to the other side of the vehicle, where he had written: _For a good time, call…_ and included, not Sam’s but his _own_ phone number.

“Why did you leave your own phone number?” Sam asked, his brow drawing tight in confusion.

“Free advertising!” Dean responded as though it should be perfectly obvious. “Duh.”

Sam rolled his eyes and laughed and the sound of his little brother’s bright bark of laughter made Dean grin from ear to ear.

They crossed into New Mexico in the late afternoon and approached Albuquerque and the Sandia Mountains as the sun was setting.  In the passenger seat, Sam was reading the newspaper he had picked up in a gas station near the Texas/New Mexico border.  Already he’d been told twice   by Dean to ‘shut it’ when he’d happened upon something that sounded like their kind of thing.

“What part of ‘shore leave’ don’t you get?” Dean asked, giving his brother an exasperated look.

“The part where you’re turning down a reason to kill something,” Sam huffed in disbelief. “Really? You’re not the least bit curious?”

“No, dude, we’re on vacation. I know that’s a difficult concept for you to grasp, college boy, so let me spell it out for ya. Vacation means no work.” He raised a hand and began ticking off on his fingers. “We drink beer, play cards, and pick up chicks. We do _not_ go out and purposefully look for the things that go bump in the night. Got it?”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it.” Sam folded up his paper neatly and slid it onto the dashboard. “Over-dramatic much?” He looked out the window and watched the scenery fly by as they came closer and closer to Albuquerque.

“Hey, pull over, will ya?”

“Why?”

Sam nodded at their surroundings and answered, “Vacation.”

Dean pulled the car off onto the side of the road, slid her into park and killed the engine. He laid his arm over the back of the seat and leaned in Sam’s direction, removing the dark Ray-Bans that he’d been wearing to protect his eyes from the sun as it made its way further and further into his line of sight. Off in the distance, the Sandia Mountains were lit up in contrasting shades of lavender against the horizon, the cottonwood trees and brush ablaze with autumn gold, and the ground speckled here and there with azure asters. The sun was sinking in the west, casting reds and pinks across the darkening sky where the first stars of the evening winked clear and bright. It was breathtaking.

  
 

“Wow,” Dean said quietly and then whistled low. “How do we miss stuff like this when we’re on the road all the damned time?”

“When’s the last time we weren’t rushing off to the next case?”

“True.”

They sat there quietly, watching star after star spring to life while the colors of the valley floor deepened as the sun set.

“Ya know, we got a few of those glass bottle sodas left in the cooler.”

“Oh-kay?” Sam said, drawing the word out in question. He turned to look at Dean and had to lean back, his brother was so close, still staring in awe at the scenery out Sam’s side window.

Dean answered without taking his eyes off the sky, “Just, it’s so clear out here away from town, and this sky is gonna light up big in about half an hour. I was just thinking it might be cool if we find some little side road and watch the show, like we used to when we were kids.”

Sam grinned. He couldn’t help it. Mister ‘I don’t do chick flick moments’ was going all sensitive and nostalgic before his very eyes. “Awww. You’re really just a big sentimental teddy bear, aren’t you?”

“Don’t you tell no one,” Dean ordered with as much seriousness as he could muster.

They found a little dead-end dirt road, and Dean pulled off into a field drive and parked. They fished the cooler out of the back of the car and settled down on the hood of the Impala with a couple of odd flavored sodas they’d picked up at Pops.

“Try this,” Sam offered his bottle to his brother.

Dean eyed the label and then screwed up his face. “Gross. No. That’s not even a real flavor.”

Sam leaned back against the windshield, and a moment later his brother joined him, nudging Sam’s rib playfully with a pointy elbow. Sam nudged Dean back and smiled. They relaxed into perfect silence and watched as one by one the stars came out and the sun was claimed by the desert horizon. It was peaceful; probably the most peaceful moment he and Dean had witnessed since teaming back up in Palo Alto the year before, and Sam sent out a silent prayer into the darkening sky that this moment of calm could last forever or…at least for a little while longer.

~~~

For an October morning, it was warmer than usual when they rolled out of Albuquerque at 7am. Four hours later, it was near 80 degrees and still climbing. The boys had rolled down all the car windows and while Dean tapped a steady rhythm against the steering wheel, the wind pounded a staccato beat against Sam’s face and neck and soon he was lulled back to sleep by it. Dean reached across the seat and pressed his hand against his brother’s chest until Sam’s head rolled back to rest against the seat.  He let out a slight snore, but settled back into sleep.

Dean smiled. “Always could knock out anywhere,” he said more to himself than to Sam, “and deep too, or at least…you used to sleep deep…before…”

Dean quickly turned his thoughts away from the reason Sammy no longer slept through the night; away from the reason he woke up with a scream dying on his lips. Instead, Dean tried to focus his thoughts on a simpler time. A time when Dean’s greatest concern was keeping children’s services off their back when Dad was away on a hunt; a time when weapons training came second only to looking after his kid brother; a time when their dad would take an hour out of his Saturday morning to watch cartoons with him and Sammy over a great big communal bowl of Fruit Loops. Life was almost easy then. It was only when their father was gone that Dean felt any sort of stress, and that was only because he was well and truly in charge and his dad was relying on him to take care of things. Back then, Sammy slept like a baby.

“God, I used to be s’damn jealous of how deep you could sleep. I couldn’t sleep for shit when Dad was gone; always had to have one ear on the door—keep us safe, but you… You were like that chick in that fairy tale. You know, the one with the apple and the midgets, ‘cept this Prince Charming,” he thumbed toward himself, “ain’t kissin’ you awake, so don’t go gettin’ any kinky ideas.”

He turned and grinned at his grown up little brother, but Sam didn’t move a muscle to acknowledge that he’d heard anything Dean had said. Dean sighed, blowing a long, tired breath through pursed lips and turned his eyes disinterestedly back towards the road. His eyes flicked back to the dashboard a moment later and he made note of the fact that he’d have to stop for gas soon.  He reached forward and turned on the radio, spinning the dial until he found a station that wasn’t subliminally begging him to rip his ears off, and then he settled back into his seat for the drive.

It was easy to zone out on the long highways, even when the scenery was so spectacular that it kept drawing his attention away from the road. But Dean was a ‘professional highwayman’. He’d crossed every one of the continental United States—some of them dozens of times—and had long ago developed a driving system that he privately likened to Warp Speed: Pick a speed, pick a spot on the horizon, and pick a tape cassette that would get him from point A to point B without noticing. It probably wasn’t the safest method out there—he’d nearly run himself off the road more than once—but it did the trick more often than not and for Dean, that’s all that counted. Yet there were still things—people, places, events—that could pull him out of his zone, and one of them had just flashed by on the road: a large green sign announcing Flagstaff, 10 miles ahead. And just like that, Dean’s quiet, little, mental Zen garden was blown all to Hell.

Flagstaff.

Dean had realized on the second day of their trip that their little journey down the ‘Mother Road’ was going to land them in Flagstaff, Arizona at one point; going this direction, it couldn’t be avoided.  Dean—a master in the art of denial—had done a decent job of putting the idea out of his head for the better part of two days. But the morning they left Albuquerque, the thought of Flagstaff had risen long before the sun, looming over Dean like the highway that stretched out forever into the Mohave.

Flagstaff. The name alone conjured goose bumps that ran the length of Dean’s arms and up his neck, into his hairline, and he was immediately transported seven years into the past.

In all of Dean’s life there had been three days that he could definitively mark as the worst of his life; November 2, 1983, when his mother died, August 28th, 2001, when Sam had taken off for Stanford, and February 7, 1999, two weeks after Dean’s 20th birthday when Sam had run away on Dean’s watch.

It had been a Friday night in February and John had left his boys with strict instructions to be available on a moment’s notice and to stick close to ‘home base’ i.e. the Sunny Beaches Motel—like that hadn’t been painfully ironic in the middle of the desert. Of course Dean’s definition of ‘close to home’ and John’s were very, very different.

Surprisingly, Sammy hadn’t seemed to mind at all when Dean had announced he was going out. In fact, fifteen-year-old Sam had appeared to be as happy as a clam, up to his waist in school work. So when Dean had returned four hours later, he’d been completely shocked to find their room empty. It had been as close to a heart attack as Dean had ever come.

Two weeks. Two weeks they had spent looking for Sam. Two weeks of Hell for both Dean and John. Working day and night to locate his missing son, John had been in a constant state of panic and more than a little on edge, a fact he hadn’t shied away from letting Dean know.

He had verbally railed on Dean for the first 24 hours of Sam’s disappearance. After which, John had fallen into silence, all but ignoring his oldest son sometimes for days at a time, and only talking to him when it was absolutely necessary. For Dean, this had been far worse than being hit. A punch, like those he and Sammy traded back and forth, meant ‘I’m pissed but I still love you’. Silence, however, Dean had interpreted as indifference, and that had been almost more than he could stomach.

The nights were by far the worst. Dean had wanted nothing more than to crawl out of his skin to escape the tension that permeated the dark. Neither of them had been able to sleep for fear of what had happened to Sammy. They had both lain awake for hours, staring into the dark until the sun streamed into the motel room and forced them out of bed. Dean would never admit that part of his sleep deprivation had been because he just couldn’t manage to fall asleep without the steady rhythm of his brother’s breathing, asleep in the next bed.

Sam took that moment to take a deep, rattling snore, startling Dean out of his thoughts and directing them back to the desert road. Sammy was okay. Not great, maybe but he was _here_ and for that, Dean was thankful.

 

~~~

Dean shook his head and tried to clear the dark funk that had settled over him since they’d passed through Flagstaff. All that shit…it was ancient history and there was no point in dwelling on it, not when he had Sammy safe, sound and, okay, drooling in his sleep, right next to him in the passenger seat of the Impala. The Winchester brothers were on shore leave; they were going to hit Vegas and paint the town red. They…Dean’s eyes flittered over the gas gauge and widened in horror. Oh shit. He’d been so caught up in his black thoughts that he’d forgotten he needed to stop for gas. Fuck. If they ran out of gas on the 93 and he had to do the walk of shame with a gas can, Sammy would never let him hear the end of it.   Dean’s eyes scanned the horizon anxiously. "Hmmm," he muttered in his best Bugs Bunny voice. "I _knew_ I shoulda took that left turn at Albuquerque."

Several minutes later a green and white metal road sign reading ‘Chloride’ pointed off to the right, accompanied by a picture of a gas pump and a knife and fork.  Dean hauled the wheel around and headed for the town. Gas and food. What more could a guy ask for? He also—and Dean would never admit this, not even under pain of torture—sort of liked little towns like Chloride; towns that were off-the-beaten-track and struggling to survive. A few miles down the road Dean passed a brightly-colored billboard, advertising Chloride as a historical mining town; a ghost town that refused to die, and which now staged mock gunfights in its main street at high noon every Saturday. Dean whistled through his teeth as he sped past the billboard. Now that would be something to see. A little further along another billboard told him that Chloride was also, apparently, famous for its yard art and the murals on its canyon walls. It was home to a small commune of hippies too. Dean grinned. He was starting to think that this could be one hell of an awesome detour. Maybe they could stay and take a break here. He could hook up with a hippie chick tonight and watch the mock gunfight tomorrow.

And then, the clincher: Dean drove past another billboard, this one advertising that there was a Classic Car Show being  held in Chloride this Saturday, starting at 10.00am. Oh yeah, they were definitely staying! Beside him Sam snored and then choked on his saliva. Dean sniggered as Sam woke up, long limbs flailing.

“Wassit…huh?” Sam spluttered.

“Real smooth, Sammy.”

Sam rubbed a hand across his face and yawned. “Where are we?”

“Just turned off for Chloride.”

Sam tilted his head and regarded Dean with wide-eyed puzzlement.

“Need gas,” Dean said.

Sam grunted and turned to look out the window…not that there was much to see, just a truckload of flat, sandy scrub, the occasional tree and a bunch of hills in the background. Sam leaned against the window and yawned again. Dean was burning a hole in the side of his head, so Sam turned to him with raised eyebrows.

“Something you wanna say?”

Dean turned back to the road. “You sleep okay?”

Sam shrugged. “I’m fine, Dean.”

“No freaky dreams?”

“Like I said—”     

“You’re fine. Right,” Dean cleared his throat. “So. I was thinking…”

“Really? Did you hurt yourself?”

Dean smacked his arm. “Bitch!”

“Ow!” Sam rubbed at his upper arm. “Jerk. Okay, I’ll bite. What were you thinking, Dean?”

Dean’s eyes slid sideways, lighting on Sam briefly before turning back to the road. “No big deal,” he said, “just thought it might be cool to lay over in Chloride. It’s a _historical_ mining town. Plus it’s famous for its art and shit. You might find some of your Grandma Moses or whatever. And,” Dean’s eyes sparkled, “they’re having a Classic Car Show this Saturday. And then at high noon there’s gonna be a mock gunfight on Main Street.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. C’mon, Sammy. It’ll be fun.”

“What about Hoover Dam?”

“We’ll go Sunday. C’mon, Sam. What d’you say? We stop and stretch our legs for a bit; you get art and history, I get a car show and gunfighting. It’s kinda perfect.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Sure. Why not.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It should be noted that our wonderful artist - who is currently working of four or five or six projects all at once - spent hours learning how to make these animated gifs to give us a **TRUE** Indiana Jones feel. We are ever-so grateful to her and her friend, [Maichan](http://maichan.livejournal.com) who helped her learn this skill. It would mean the world to us if you could let her know how much you enjoyed her work. Visit her [Master Post](http://cassiopeia7.livejournal.com/360828.html) and give her love. Thank you!!


	3. Chapter Two

The Chloride gas station was just…well, it was embarrassing; there was really no other word for it. The façade of the cashier-come-mini-mart had been completely painted over, mural style, in bright garish colors. The painted scene was of a huge UFO hovering over the desert, with smaller UFOs coming down to land, piloted by bubble-headed green aliens. Apparently they needed gas and, for some reason, beef jerky. The locals served them happily and waved at them, with big goofy grins on their faces. Dean, one hand on the nozzle of the gas pump, the other resting on his baby’s trunk, was transfixed by the mural’s tackiness. It was like watching a car wreck; you didn’t want to see it, but you just couldn’t look away. 

The Chloride main drag wasn’t exactly big. After paying for the gas, Dean did a quick circuit of the town’s center and then parked in front of Yesterdays Restaurant. The restaurant, with its salmon-pink exterior walls, forest green double doors, and grass-skirted Indian Brave statue standing guard out front, certainly stood out. 

“Dude,” Dean spoke quietly, his eyes darting up and down the row of classic wooden facades and tin roofs, “all the other buildings look like they came off the set of _The good, the bad and the ugly_. Why does the food have to be in the douched-up building?”

Thankfully the inside of the restaurant was a lot less colorful. It had cream walls, slate floors and high ceilings supported by exposed, wooden beams. Candelabras and fans hung from the ceiling and the mismatched cane furniture and white tablecloths gave the place a homey, rustic feel.

The boys took a table for two toward the back of the restaurant, angled so that neither of them had their back to the door or the front window, and they had a clear line of sight to both the entrance and the fire exit. They’d barely sat down when a thirty-something waitress with her dyed red hair pinned back into a straggly bun came across with her order pad.

“Welcome to Yesterdays,” she said, handing them each a menu, “Can I get you boys something to drink?”

Dean quickly scanned the available beers, listed on the back of the menu, and ordered a Budweiser.

“And for you?” the waitress turned to Sam.

“Make it two,” Sam flashed his dimples and Dean watched, bemused, as the waitress dissolved into a puddle of goo, before hurrying off to the kitchen.

“Dude, you are so in!”  Dean said with a sly wink, mostly just to watch his little brother’s neck and face flush red. Sam didn’t disappoint.

“Shut the hell up,” he said, making a show of reading the menu and not even looking at Dean. “I’m just being friendly. Unlike you, I don’t need to bang everything with a pulse.”

Dean sniggered. “Man, you are so easy.”

Sam flipped the page. “That’s what she said,” he snarked, “about you. Come to think of it Dean, _everyone_ says that about you.”

Dean laughed out loud. He’d missed this so much when Sam had been away at Stanford. Having his kid brother sitting opposite him, bantering and bickering with him while they shared a meal, it made Dean happier than just about anything.

“Maybe I am easy,” he said, “or maybe you’re just complicated. So long as everybody goes home happy, what does it matter?”

Sam looked like maybe he had an answer for that, but before he could voice it the waitress came back with their beers and asked them if they were ready to order.

Sam flashed his dimples again, shutting the menu and handing it back to the waitress, “I’ll have the grilled turkey on sour dour with hand cut potato wedges.”

“Good choice.” The waitress grinned and turned to Dean. “For you?”

“Uh…” Dean had been so busy stirring Sam that he hadn’t really looked at the menu yet. He began to hastily flick pages. “Uh…I’ll have…”

“They’ve got two pound monster burgers,” Sam said helpfully.

“Really?” Dean’s face lit up.

Sam nodded. “Or you could have The Big Dog, with all the fixin’s.”

“Oh man,” Dean pouted, “why’d you have to go and make it complicated?”

Sam laughed. “Okay, how about The Big Dog now and the monster burger for supper?”

Dean grinned. He nodded at the waitress and then took a good look at her name tag. “What he said. Thanks Marcy.”

Marcy took down the order and then looked back up at them, sucking at her bottom lip with her teeth.

“So you boys aren’t just passin’ through? You’re planning on stayin’ overnight?”

“Sure are,” Dean said, “my brother and I are road tripping to Vegas. We were just plannin’ on stoppin’ here for gas, but then we saw the sign for the Car Show and I figured I’d see if I could get my baby a trophy.”

“Oh,” Marcy’s face fell. “Then I gotta be honest with you, there’s talk we might hafta postpone it ‘til Sunday.”

Dean’s face matched the waitress’s. “Really? Why?”

Marcy shuffled uncomfortably and Dean’s spidey sense started to tingle. “It’s no big deal or anything,” she said, “just…one of the local ranchers had a couple cows go missing and then a couple teenagers dirt-biking out in the scrubland reckoned they’d seen…something out there.”

Sam and Dean exchanged a look.

“Some _thing_?” Dean said.

Marcy shrugged. “Prob’ly just kids being kids and coyotes out in the back blocks,” she said. “But they insisted on going out again and well…They’re prob’ly just bein’ bull-headed and thoughtless,” Marcy chewed at her bottom lip, “but they should’ve been back by now and they’re not.  So their Dads and a couple others went out to bring ‘em in. They should be back soon, but...” she trailed off, her fingers white-knuckled against her order pad.

“You’re worried that maybe the kids got hurt,” Dean stated.

Sam looked up at him briefly and then turned to Marcy, his eyes brimming with compassion.

“Do they have cell reception out there?”

Marcy made a non-committal noise. “It’s not all that good around here. There’s a lotta black spots.”

“Did the kids say what they think they saw?” Dean asked.

Marcy’s eyes slid away. “Not a big deal,” she said again. “I’m sure everthing’ll be just fine. I’m gonna go put your order in.” She backed away and then hurried through the saloon doors that separated the restaurant from the kitchen.

Dean watched the hinged doors swing themselves to a stop and then turned to look at his brother.

“She seemed pretty spooked,” he said. “Could be our kinda thing.”

Sam pursed his lips. “Could be. Or it could just be kids being kids and coyotes out in the back blocks.”

Dean nodded. “Yeah. Whadya say we hang around anyway, and in the meantime, we can keep our ears to the ground, just in case?”

Sam took a swig of his beer and then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

“Thought we were on shore leave, Dean? Weren’t you just explaining the other day how being on vacation means that we’re not killing any monsters right now?”

Dean’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t be a dick, Sam. I just said we shouldn’t go actively looking for a case. If you were a doctor and someone had a heart attack in this diner, would you refuse to do CPR cuz you were on vacation?”

Sam rolled his eyes and played with the label on his beer bottle. “That’s like saying if a werewolf ran in here would I refuse to get the silver bullets out cuz we’re on holiday.  So that…that was a shitty analogy.”

Dean leaned forward, his face pinched and angry. “Okay, fine,” he said. “You argue about the quality of my analogy, College Boy. In the meantime, people are missing, Sammy. _Kids_ are missing; could be hurt or worse, and I ain’t gonna sit around doin’ nothin’ just cuz we’re on shore leave.”

“I didn’t mean…” Sam said, “I was just pointing out…” he trailed off with a sigh. “Okay. You’re right. I’ll do a little research tonight, see if there are any local legends that might be causing a problem. Alright?”

Dean nodded and then took a long drink of his own beer. It was probably nothing. Sammy and Marcy were probably right. But something about the uneasy look on Marcy’s face had set his alarm bells ringing and over the years Dean had learnt to listen to them.

~~~

The motel was full, booked up months in advance by motor vehicle enthusiasts. There was an RV park on the outskirts of town, but the forty-something woman behind the motel desk told them that it didn’t have on-site vans, so unless they were driving a Winnebago, they were fresh outta luck on the accommodation front.

Dean’s face twisted in horror. “Do I look like a Winnebago driver?” he shuddered. “That’s my baby out there,” he pointed between the gaps in the angled blinds and the woman sucked in a breath.

“The ’67 Impala? That’s yours?”

Dean grinned. “You know cars.”

The woman raised an eyebrow and planted her hands on her hips, wheeling her desk chair backwards to give herself a better look at Dean.

“I oughta,” she said. “My daddy was a mechanic on the Daytona circuit. Also,” she inclined her head toward a framed copy of the front cover of Girl Torque.  It was opaque with dust and sitting on top of an old grey filing cabinet, but Dean could clearly see that the girl in racing leathers on the front cover was the same woman who now sat in front of him. She was just a decade or so older now.

“No _way_!” he said. 

The woman stood up and offered him her hand. “Lyn Fisher. Raced Indy Cars for nine years. Best I ever managed was fourth position, but I got a lot of press. Weren’t a lotta women in the sport back then.”

Dean looked positively giddy with excitement. “That’s _awesome_!” he cleared his throat and then held out his hand. “Uh, I’m Dean. This is Sam.”

Sam offered his own handshake. “Do you know if any of the motels in Kingman or Dolan Springs are likely to have any vacancies?” he asked.

Dean shot his brother a quick look. He’d assumed the lack of rooms would see Sammy arguing that they push on to Hoover Dam, but, hey, he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, so he kept his shut.

Lyn shrugged. “I can call ahead and ask if you’d like? Save you the drive. Or,” she hesitated a moment, “Or I could call my sister-in-law instead. She’s got room since her daughter left for college. She’d probably put you up.”

“That’d be awesome,” Dean said, just as Sam said: “We don’t want to put you to any trouble.”

Lyn smiled. “It’s no trouble. I think she’d be glad of the company. And besides, that fine looking piece of automobile deserves a decent garage.”

“That’d be _awesome_ ,” Dean said again and Sam looked at him hard.  Sure, Dean was a high school dropout and he’d never done well in English, but he was usually a little more articulate than this.

Lyn nodded and picked up the phone.

“Dude,” Sam whispered. “What’s with you?”

Dean’s eyes darted to Lyn, then to the framed magazine cover on the filing cabinet and then back to Sam. “1992,” he said softly, “Speedway, Indiana. Dad had a hunt at the motor speedway. You remember? That pissed off spirit of that driver? Caused a lotta crashes at the 500 that year. Even got someone killed before Dad could gank it.”

Sam’s furrowed brow straightened out. “Oh yeah,” he said. “You were, what? Thirteen? You had a major crush on the girl who got Rookie of the Year. What was her—” he eyes suddenly widened and then darted to Lyn. “No _way_!”

~~~

The house was white fibro-cement, single-story with an orange tin roof and small square windows set either side of the door. The yard was dusty baked-dirt, although an attempt had been made to create a front garden: a few scraggly trees, some cacti and some small grass bushes surrounded by rocks.  The backyard was enclosed by a chain link fence, hung with a sign that said:  ‘Never mind the dog, beware of the owner’. There was, none-the-less, a dog; a lean, alert Doberman with a docked tail, who came straight to the fence and stood growling and quivering as soon as the Impala rumbled into the drive way.

“Hey boy,” Sam approached cautiously, “who’s a good boy then!”

The dog barked.

“It’s okay, Sam,” said Lyn, “they’re friends.”

“Huh?” said Sam.

“The dog. He’s called Sam.”

Dean sniggered.

The screen door squeaked open and a tall, thin woman with spiky blue and pink hair appeared on the porch. She was bare footed and wore a rainbow-colored kaftan and a curious expression.

“These the boys?” she asked.

Lyn hurried to greet the woman, embracing her warmly.

“Love the hair, Kate. What does Lu think?”

Kate shrugged. “Hasn’t seen it yet. She’s been down at the gallery all day,” her eyes darted to Sam and Dean. “You boys better come in.”

They followed her into the cool darkness of the house and then Sam stepped forward to make the introductions. “I’m Sam, this is Dean. It’s a pleasure to meet you ma’am.”

Kate rolled her eyes. “Please. Ma’am is my mother! I’m Kate. You’ll probably meet my partner Lu at dinner.”

Dean treated her to his flirty, mischievous smile. “So you and, uh, Lu own a business together?”

“One of the local galleries.”

“That’s awesome. Sammy here loves art.”

Kate smiled at Sam. “How about we get you boys settled and then, if you like, I can take you down to the art gallery and Dean can go with Lyn to get registered for the car show.”

“I don’t want to put you to any trouble,” Sam said, as they followed their hostess down the corridor towards the bedrooms.

“It’s no trouble,” Kate replied, “I was gonna go down anyway; show Lu my new hair!”

She opened a wood-paneled door on the right hand side of the corridor and gestured inside. “Here you are,’ she said.

Dean peered inside and frowned. “Uh…there’s only one bed.”

Kate’s eyes darted from Sam to Dean and back to Sam.

“And that’s a problem because…?”

“It’s fine,” Sam soothed. “My brother and I are very grateful that you opened your home to us. It won’t be the first time we’ve had to share a bed.”

Kate’s mouth became pinched and her eyes narrowed. “Your… _brother_ …” she choked out, “Lyn!” she shouted down the corridor; “You said they were a gay couple!”

Dean’s eyes widened comically. “Why do people always think we’re gay?” he hissed.

“Kate,” Sam reached out and squeezed the nervous woman’s arm gently. “It’s okay. We’re not bigots or anything. You and Lu have nothing to worry about from us.”

Dean’s jaw dropped. “Partners?” he said. “Like _partner_ , partners?” he grinned and nudged Sam’s shoulder. “We’re staying with lesbians, Sammy!” 

Sam rolled his eyes. “Excuse us,” he said, pushing Dean into the bedroom and closing the door behind them with an apologetic smile at Kate & Lyn. “Dude,” he said to his brother, “are we gonna have to have that conversation about reality and porn again?”

~~~

It was only a short walk to the gallery, but it was dusty and hot and Sam was sweaty and uncomfortable by the time they got there.

The gallery was blessedly air-conditioned and Sam shivered as his shirt began to un-cling from his back.  The paintings on the walls of this gallery were definitely more Grandma Moses than Grant Wood. There were some patchwork quilts on display too, as well as a case of antique porcelain dolls.

“These quilts are gorgeous,” Sam said, and then his face heated.  Thank God Dean wasn’t here or Sam would never hear the end of that comment.

“They are, aren’t they?” said an elfin woman with short-cropped hair, as she emerged from the back office. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed Kate on the cheek. “Love the hair, babe.”

She wrapped her arm around the taller woman’s waist and turned back to Sam.

“You must be one of our lodgers. Where are you from?”

“Uh, yeah. Sam. Pleased to meet you. Lu? Was it?” he reached forward and shook her hand. “My brother and I are on an extended road trip.”

Lu went still in her girlfriend’s arms. “Brother?” she glanced up at Kate.

Sam huffed out a laugh and rubbed at his jaw. “Yeah.  Lyn kinda jumped to the wrong conclusion, which has happened before to be honest, so, I mean, we’re not offended or anything. And we’re not assholes or anything either,” and, okay, maybe he should’ve tried to avoid mentioning assholes given the subject.

Lu however, merely smiled. “That’s really interesting,” she said, “Why do you think people mistake you and your brother for a couple?”

Sam had actually thought about that long and hard after the whole thing in Oasis Plains.

“We kinda grew up on the road,” he said. “After our Mom died, our Dad…he didn’t cope too well, used to get the urge to hit the road and move on pretty often.  New town; new school. You can’t always be bothered to try and make friends, especially when you know you’ll just be moving again. But we always had each other and,” Sam laughed shortly, “we never really had a lotta room so, uh, we probably don’t have the same kind of personal boundaries that most brothers do.”

Kate and Lu looked at each other. “That actually makes a lot of sense,” Kate said.

“Yeah,” Lu nodded, “and calling quilts ‘gorgeous’, does wonders for your Queer Cred too, darling!” Sam put his face in his hands. “Don’t tell Dean about that, okay? He’ll give me so much shit!”

Lu laughed. “Definitely brothers! Listen, why don’t you have a look around the gallery? I just have to borrow Kate for a moment for some boring business stuff.”

“Oh yeah,” said Sam. “Sure. No problem.”

Lu and Kate disappeared back into the office and Sam wandered around and looked at the paintings.  Some of them looked so textured that Sam had to resist the urge to reach out and touch them. Eventually he made his way around to the case with the porcelain dolls, which were pretty creepy, he decided. Especially now that he knew that old ones like these were often made with real hair. And holy shit. Sam’s stomach turned to ice. That was a porcelain clown. He edged away slowly and found himself subconsciously heading toward the office.

“I’m telling you, Kate,” Sam heard Kate say, her voice rising in urgency. “She was freaked. Genuinely freaked. And when I told her about the missing boys…Look, Kate, I know you don’t put the same kind of stock into Hualapai legends that I do, but Hilda knows something about whatever is causing these earth tremors and the cattle disappearances.”

“That’s superstitious bullshit,” Kate said. “There’s nothing mystical about earth tremors and we’ve had cattle being taken by coyotes and mountain lions since God was in short pants!”

“Then explain the boys going missing! And don’t you dare say they’re just being teenagers,” Lu’s voice cracked, “because my nephew would never do this to us! Something is very wrong, Kate!”

When Kate spoke again her voice was much softer.  “I know you’re worried, sweetheart. And you’re right. Luke would never just take off. They’ve probably had some problems with the bikes. They’ll be back tomorrow, I’m sure of it, and there’ll be a perfectly logical explanation, you’ll see.”

Sam backed quietly away from the office and was innocently looking at a large wall tapestry when the women rejoined him.

“That’s a tapestry of our Mural,” Lu said.

Sam’s puzzled expression was response enough.

“You don’t know about the Chloride Mural? _The Journey_? It was painted by Roy Purcell in 1966 on a collection of boulders about a mile and a half outside of town.”

“Oh right! Of course. It was his first recognized work, wasn’t it? Done in the abstract modernist tradition. Yeah, I remember learning about that in my Art History course at Stanford.”

Lu raised an eyebrow. “Stanford, hey? Well color me impressed.”

Sam grinned sheepishly.

“You ready to go?” Kate asked. “Or do you want to look around the gallery for a while longer.”

Sam said that he was ready to go, and the two of them headed to the door. Lu snagged hold of the back of Kate’s dress at the door step and reeled her in, flashing Sam a quick grin, before kissing her thoroughly.  When they pulled apart, Sam couldn’t help smiling at Kate’s dazed expression.

Lu glanced up at Sam again. “You and your brother should make time to go and have a look at the actual mural while you’re here,” she said. “I think you’d appreciate it.”

~~~

“What d’ya suppose is going on over there?” Sam asked, pushing himself away from where he’d been leaning heavily against the Impala’s fender.

Dean peeked his head out from beneath the hood and frowned. A small crowd of people were gathering just up the street; several of them talking very animatedly.  Among them, was a tall slender man, wearing a wide-brimmed Stetson and fringed chaps and vest. He had a very ‘Wild Bill Hickok’ look to him, and a zing of excitement ran though Dean as he realized that he was probably looking at the man known as Cahill.

When Sam and Dean had returned to the diner the night before to grab supper, they had been greeted again by Marcy. They’d inquired about the search efforts, and she’d told them about Cahill, the town’s primary ‘gunfighter.’ A throw-back to the old Wild West and one of Chloride’s appointed leaders, Ben Cahill was spearheading the search parties; and although he’d really wanted to see the gunfight, Dean was more interested to hear what was to be said and done about the disappearances.

“Let’s go check it out,” Dean replied, trying his best to conceal his eagerness. He wiped his hands on a shop towel, tossed it aside, and then he and Sam made their way across the street. The closer they got, the more apparent it became that there was a problem.

Sam slotted into the spot behind a young couple; the woman clinging to the man’s left arm, while he juggled a youngster in his right. There was a line of tension visible in their body language and in the way the held on to each other, as though at any moment they might be forcefully separated. And as Sam looked around, he noticed the same look in many of those gathered around to hear the news.

“What’s happened?” Sam asked them, leaning in to speak quietly.

The young man looked over his shoulder and eyed him warily before answering, “They found the boys’ bikes.”

“But no boys?” Dean asked, stepping up beside his brother.

“No,” the woman replied. She shook her head sadly and pressed further into her husband’s side. “Those poor boys.”

The man in the Stetson raised a hand, drawing all eyes to him. Like the rest of the group, Dean pressed in closer to hear him, and when he spoke his voice rose out of the middle of the crowd like a preacher on Sunday and everyone went quiet, waiting on bated breath for the news.

“Listen up folks!” Cahill called out to the crowd. “We need about a dozen volunteers to start if we’re going to comb every inch of those foothills. We’ll break up into groups of three or four – cover more land that way – fan out and work our way to the hills and up.  Carl will head up one team, me another, and two more…Billy, why don’t you and Eric each take a team. All the rest of ya, split off into groups and then we’ll plot out the valley.”

No soon were the words out of his mouth, than there was a rush of people in motion. Dean pushed his way through the surging crowd—Sam following right on his heels—to make his way to Cahill.

“We’ll help,” Dean offered, pulling up just short of running into the lanky cowboy. “My brother and I, we want in.”

Cahill gave them each a brief once-over and then went back to his clipboard check list. “I appreciate the offer, fellas, but this is a local problem.  I need men who know the terrain, men who ain’t afraid to use a rifle if the need arises. I don’t need no out-of-towners getting themselves into a jam and I especially don’t need a couple of frat boys straight out of the city on a road trip. Hell, for all I know, you’re probably out here cruisin’ old 66 on the way to Vegas; looking to get your rocks off in a couple of fast women and a little action. Well, not here. No thank you. This little excursion ain’t meant for tourists.”

“Do I _look_ like a tourist to you?” Immediately Sam’s hand wrapped around Dean’s bicep, tugging him backwards in silent warning, but Dean just shook him off and plowed on.

“Look Cahill—you are Cahill, right? I get it. You don’t know me from Adam, but…if it’s trackers you’re looking for…guys who can handle their own and anything else that might come along, then we’re your guys.”

“No offence kid, but you don’t look like you could hit the broad side of a barn.”

“$50 bucks says otherwise,” Dean answered, not backing down one inch.

“Don’t waste my time.”

“No sir.”  Sam took a guarded step in front of his brother. “We’re not here to waste your time. We just want to help. So if it’s proof you’re needing…name your target. Dean’ll take the shot. If you’re not satisfied, we’ll be out of your hair and on our way. Okay?”

“Fine.”

“Fine,” Dean repeated heatedly.

“See those buildings there?” He pointed down the street at a make-shift frontier town. “That’s our gunfight set. Second building, first window, second pane on the top…that’s the target.”

“Won’t that be a problem,” Sam asked, “us shooting up your set?”

“That whole town is one giant prop, son. Those are candy glass windows. They get replaced all the time.”

“Second pane? On the top?” Dean asked, verifying the instructions.

“Yup.”

“Okay.”

Dean didn’t hesitate. He pulled his Colt from beneath his waistband, checked the magazine, tapping it once, then twice against the butt of his gun before sliding the clip back into place. He dropped the safety and then he dropped the hammer. The clap of sound that followed was clear and bright and bounced briskly off the store fronts as it sailed—faster than the eye could see—shattering the second pane on the top of the first window of the second building; the building marked: Sherriff’s Office.

It took great effort for Cahill to hide his impression. In fact he had to swallow hard before he pasted on a look of indifference. Then and only then did he turn to face the boys.

“Fine,” he resigned. “What about you?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at Sam.

But Sam was waiting for him. He had his Taurus locked, loaded and ready to go. He didn’t even pause to site the target, just raised his weapon and fired. The echo rebounded a split second before the repeated tinkle of falling glass.

“Where’d you say you were from again?”

“Around,” Dean said brusquely. “Are we in?”

“Yeah. Yes, you’ll uh…you’ll be in my group; the both of you. Get your gear and meet back here in fifteen.”


	4. Chapter Three

Walking briskly across the gunfight set, Dean’s boots crunched in the fine gravel. He shouldered a .22 high-powered rifle on one arm, tucking his Colt 1911 into the belted waistband at his back; both weapons loaded with silver Accutip rounds—just in case. In step beside him, Sam toted a backpack laden with every ounce of gear he thought they might need and some they might not.

Watching Sam cram a rope, three flares, a full med kit, and a survival blanket into the pack, Dean had shaken his head and given Sam grief.

“Dude. We’re not going camping for Christ sakes. We’re gonna be back before night fall.”

“You’ll thank me later,” Sam had answered without looking up from his task.

“Whatever…” Dean had rolled his eyes and gone back to sharpening his Bowie, muttering, “Boy Scout,” beneath his breath.

By the time the group was reassembled, the sun was high in the sky and already making its descent towards the horizon. Time was of the essence, as it wouldn’t be long before the sun would dip behind the hills and the valley would fall into shadow making their search that much more difficult.

Cahill stepped into the circle of men, raising his hat as a call for attention, and with it they all fell silent.

“Alright, everyone here? I’ve got walkies for each team.” He raised the black and gold Motorolas into the air and began distributing them among the team leaders. “We’ll be set up on channel 22, so y’all make sure an’ keep your ears on at all times. We’ve already misplaced two of our people. I don’t want anybody else goin’ missin’ on my watch. Got it?”

There was a low hum of sound in answer to his instruction, and then he plowed on.

“Team leaders, you know your quadrant. We’ll do a verbal check-in every half hour, but if any one of ya stumble upon anything, make sure the word gets around. We’ve got Lyn here at base, monitoring the radio, and should anyone need immediate assistance, Virgil’s got his Jeep gassed and ready to go. Any questions?”

The group shifted then, assembling into their teams without further coaching. Sam and Dean moved too, joining Cahill where he stood talking with a man whom the boys recognized as Carlos Massina, one of the missing boy’s fathers. If appearances were to be believed—and they were—Massina was a true cowboy. A broad shouldered man with long, muscular legs and a naturally narrow waist, he stood, feet set wide, head rolled back on his shoulders, and thumbs tucked behind and framing his too-large belt buckle. But his casual stance belied the tension that radiated off of him and the worry that was clearly visible in his brown eyes. It was easy for Sam to recognize that look. It was the same cock-sure attitude Dean had thrown up to distract from how truly scared he’d been about their father’s disappearance when he’d come for Sam almost a year ago. Like Dean, this was a man who was hurting and frightened and Sam knew right away that it was probably best to keep his brother as far away from him as possible. Dean wasn’t particularly known for his tact and the last thing they needed was him spouting off some inappropriate comment about how the missing boys were probably dead…or worse. Yeah. No…definitely keep Dean away from Massina.

“Change of plans,” Cahill announced when Sam and Dean joined them. “You’re with me,” he said, nodding at Dean, “but Stretch, you’re gonna go with Carl, here, on account that he needs an extra hand.”

Before Dean could even get a word out, Sam placed a placating hand on his brother’s shoulder, stopping the argument that he could see bubbling up in him. He met Dean’s eyes—which were quite clearly stating Dean’s disapproval of their separation—and answered, “That’ll be fine. We can cover more ground that way.”

Dean’s chin ticked to the side and he frowned, crossing his arms in a show of stubbornness.

“It’ll be fine,” Sam repeated for Dean’s benefit.

~~~

It would be fine. Dean knew that, but somewhere in the back of his head warning bells were sounding. It had only been a few days since the last time he and his brother had been split up, and that hadn’t turned out so well. Trapped in a house with a psychotic ghost-child, Sam and Sarah had nearly gotten themselves killed, and Dean had scrambled in panic to save them. So excuse him for having every reason in the world to be nervous about letting his brother out of his sight again.

Sam pressed a road flare into Dean’s palm, trying to quickly split up their shared pack. Dean slid the flare into his shirt pocket like an over-sized cigar and then took the bag from his brother and stuffed all the gear that Sam had been dividing back into it. He zipped it up and handed it back to Sam, holding onto the strap until he had Sam’s full attention.

“Be careful, lil brother.”

“Dean…”

“I mean it, Sam. You get hurt out there and I swear I’m gonna—”

“You’re gonna what?”

“Kick your ass, that’s what. You get hurt and I’m gonna kick your ass.”

“Oh-kay,” Sam taunted, not bothering to hide his grin.

“Just…”Dean took a deep breath and tried to rein it all back in; all the chick-flick feelings he was waving around for the entire world to see. He ducked his head, feeling his cheeks flare up in embarrassment. “Just take care of yourself, alright?”

“You too, Dean” Sam answered, no longer smiling when Dean glanced up at him. “See you back here in a few.”

“Yup.”

~~~

“What are you doin’ over there?”

Dean looked up from where he was trying hard to adjust the fit of his jeans in the saddle; fighting with the rough denim seam that was cutting off circulation to the bits Dean deemed extremely important.

“I thought you said you could ride.”

“No. You asked if I thought I can ride, and I said: ‘Sure. Why not?’ Those are two very different things.”

When Cahill had announced in town that his team would be heading out on horseback, Dean had nearly hummed with excitement. The thought of finally—after all these years—getting to mount up, Clint Eastwood style, and ride off into the desert sun had Dean grinning from ear to ear. Cahill had led his team—Dean and a wiry young man named Ronnie—out back to an honest-to-God stable where a trio of horses had already been saddled and were ready for the trail.

Two hours later, Dean was seriously rethinking the Josey Wales lifestyle. They had headed north out of town, searching the high ground north of the quarry first. It was rough, rocky land, dotted with high brush, short trees and lots of hills. Dean’s legs and lower back ached, his butt had long since fallen asleep, and he didn’t even want to discuss the tingly sensation of the seriously bad kind in his groin. Good damn thing he didn’t want kids, he thought to himself.

And as if the man could read his thoughts, Cahill shook his head, scowling.

“What?” Dean asked, feeling the weight of the other man’s disapproval. “We’ve been up and down these hills so many damn times, my ass doesn’t know whether it’s coming or going.”

“Alright,” the older man grimaced, waving Dean off. “I don’t need to know what’s what with your backside, so just…keep that to yourself, will ya?”

Beside him, Ronnie snorted, drawing Dean’s unappreciative attention.

Ronnie, Dean had come to learn, was quite a bit younger than Dean had first assumed. He wasn’t a bad kid either; Dean might even go so far as to say he kinda liked the guy. They were similar in a lot of ways. Both were the oldest of their particular families, although unlike Dean, Ronnie had two little sisters, 14 and 16 respectively.  Like Dean, Ronnie hadn’t finished high school, dropping out in his last year to go into the ‘family business’ just as Dean had done. Of course the little gift shop Ronnie’s family ran was a far cry from the Winchester way of life, but it didn’t stop Ronnie from being 100% committed. During their sweep of the lower hills, he had shared with Dean that his father had taken ill while Ronnie was still in school, and handling the shop on her own had been more than his mother could handle—not while having to care for Ronnie’s father and raise their three kids. So he’d quit school, gotten his GED, and gone to work in the shop, promising his parents that he’d look into college courses as soon as his father was back on his feet. That had been two years ago, and the following spring, Ronnie’s father had succumbed to the cancer and died, leaving the young man fully in charge of the business. With all that responsibility on his shoulders, it was no wonder he appeared older than his age. He was too thin, and looked too tired for his own good.

At nineteen, Ronnie was only a couple years older than the Massina boy and his friend. In fact, they had attended the same school, played the same sports. And small towns being what they were, Ronnie had admitted to knowing the missing boys fairly well—a fact that actually made Dean wary of the younger man. Not that he didn’t trust the kid to do the job. It was just that an emotional tie to one or both of the victims could spell trouble when the real danger arose.

Dean tucked his chin; his eyebrows rising high when he asked, “You got somethin’ to add to this?”

“You two remind me of those guys from that movie,” Ronnie shrugged, his mouth twisting into a mischievous smirk. “You know…Grumpy Old Men.”

“Who’s old?” Dean barked out. “I’m not old.”

“Naw, but ya are grumpy,” Cahill commented. “I only just met ya and I can tell _that_ already,” he said over his shoulder as he urged his mount down the hill.

Ronnie followed suit, his laugh, a bright amused sound that echoed off the painted limestone rocks surrounding them.  “I am a _joy_ to be around,” Dean argued at their retreating forms. “A joy!”

~~~

The crew that Sam had been assigned to—Carlos’s crew—consisted of four men: himself, a young man named Angel, who didn’t appear to fit his name at all, a man Sam guessed was in his late fifties named Dodger, and lastly Carlos Massina, the father of one of the missing boys, Luke.

“So, you’re Lu’s brother, huh?”

Carlos looked up sharply, from where he was studying the map spread out across the seat of his 4wheeler and eyed Sam warily. “You know Lu?”

Sam nodded. “The motel was full because of the car show. Lu and Kate were nice enough to put my brother and me up for the night.”

Apprehension drained out of Carlos with a small warm-hearted smile. “They’re good girls,” he stated proudly. “They’re blessed to have found each other, and Luke and I are blessed to have them in our lives. My son, Lucas…he…” Carlos’s smile waned. He licked his dry lips and swallowed thickly, the fear visible in his eyes before he turned them back to the map. “He loves his Aunt Luz,” Carlos continued, shaking it off as though he hadn’t just nearly choked on emotion, although he wouldn’t meet Sam’s concerned gaze. “Loves her to the end of the world and back. Hell, she practically raised him after his mom and I divorced. Luke was only six years old when we split, and he didn’t understand why it was happening. I tried my best, but after his mother left, he needed a woman’s hand, and Luz was there for us. I don’t know that we’d have survived as a family if it hadn’t been for my sister. She saved us; me and Luke, and if we don’t get him back—”

“We’ll find him,” Sam assured, breaking off Carlos’s downward spiral of thought. “We won’t stop looking until we do.”

Carlos expelled a ragged breath and then shook his head clear. “How’d you get wrapped up into this anyway?” he asked, frowning. “You’re not from around here and as far as I know, you don’t know my kid.”

“No sir.”

“So why’d you volunteer so quick?” Carlos asked.

Sam shrugged, his mouth twisting up until the corner of his lip was tucked between his teeth and occupying his hands with his gear. He tied the bag down onto the rear rack of the Quad he’d been loaned while he considered his answer carefully.  “That’s…just how our dad raised us, I guess.”

“You and your brother.”

“Dean. Yessir.”

“And you’re Sam?”

“Sam Winchester,” he nodded, presenting his hand.

Carlos searched Sam’s face, and once satisfied, reached across to take a firm hold of the proffered hand. “Carlos Massina. You can call me Carl. Everyone else does.”

“Okay, Carl. Where do we go from here?”

They had spent the better part of an hour carefully combing the quarter mile or so between the south end of town and the Massina farm. So far they had turned up nothing.  “We go,” Carl turned the map toward Sam and tapped a forefinger on a spot marked on the color coded grid, “right here.”

He waved the two other men over and together they went over the next part of the plan. They’d start at the boys’ last known location; the fence line that skirted Massina’s property, spread out with 10ft between them, and work their way toward the hills. They’d comb every inch of their 640 acre sector until Carl was satisfied.

Mounting their individual 4wheelers, Sam watched Carl closely. The desperation radiating off of the man was like heat radiating off the desert floor, and it motivated Sam in a way that surprised him. Finding the Massina boy alive and putting this family back together, felt as important to Sam as finding his own father had all those months ago. Maybe even more important, because this boy was an innocent; he needed their help and protection. And whatever words anyone used to describe John Winchester, _innocent_ would never be one of them. He turned the ignition key over and pulled away, following Carl and his crew down the dirt road that would take them to the Massina farm.

~~~

“I ain’t never seen anything like this, Carl.” Dodger, a wiry, grizzled-looking man in his early fifties, looked up at Carl and shielded his eyes from the bright morning light from where he knelt on the ground. They had stopped along the Massina property where Dodger and Sam had quickly dismounted their vehicles to investigate the downed fence post.

Sam pressed down on the recently exposed end of the post, causing it to bounce loosely on stressed barbed wire. “The post’s been pushed _up_ ,” he said, not believing his own eyes.

Dodger nodded his agreement, stood up and dusted himself off. “More like it shot straight up out of the ground.”

The other member of the team, Angel, a stocky young man with tattooed sleeves, a neck tattoo and a cocky swagger, perked up at Dodger’s words. “How’s that even possible?” he demanded.

“It’s not.” Carl dismissed with a growl. He climbed off of his Quad and stomped over to the fence. “I pounded these posts myself, they shouldn’t have gone anywhere.”

“Does anybody smell that?” Sam asked frowning, just as Carl picked up the 4x4 post and wedged it back into its hole.

“Carl, wait,” Sam warned, reaching out to stop the older man, but it was too late. Carl gave the post a good push and gasped as the ground suddenly gave way in front of him. He stumbled, falling forward; his arms flailing wildly in attempt to right himself before he fell into the still-widening hole, and then he was tumbling backwards.

Carl hit the ground hard and had the breath knocked out of him when extra weight slammed down on top of him. Dazed and confused, he was pulled back onto his feet by multiple hands, patting and brushing him free of dust.

“You alright?” Sam asked apologetically.

“Fine. Fine,” Carl sputtered, pushing clear of the grabbing hands. He found his bearings and joined the others as they all leaned carefully over the newly formed pit.

Angel leaned out further, testing fate and the limits of gravity by tapping foot against the rim of the hole. “What the hell is that?”

“It’s a hole, stupid,” Dodger chastised, pulling the young man back to safety.

“I know that,” the boy spat back, rolling his eyes. “I meant, what made it? You think it’s one of those sinkholes?” he asked, turning to Carl.

“Sam’s right, Carl. It stinks down there,” Dodger piped up. He stepped away warily, his mouth and nose twitching with distaste. “Smells foul. Dead.”

Angel too, backed away from the edge, shaking his head and looking worried. “I don’t like this. What if Luke or Brian are down there?”

“Only one way to find out,” Sam offered, hefting a rope out of his bag.

~~~

Truth be told, Dean was a little bummed. He’d always been a big fan of western movies and his idols growing up had been the traditional western heroes of the fifties, sixties and seventies: The Lone Ranger, Maverick, The Magnificent Seven, the outlaw Josey Wales. He’d loved the bond that the cowboys had with their horses and had been secretly hoping that he and Blossom would form a close and trusting partnership.

Unfortunately, Blossom seemed to be the one woman who wouldn’t be eating out of his hand any time soon. In fact, she seemed more likely to bite his hand off than eat off it, if the way she kept plowing straight through the tallest shrubs she could find was anything to go by. 

“Really, Blossom? Really?” Dean griped as the grey mare once again ran through a waist high shrub that whipped against his shins like a wire brush. No doubt about it, the horse was evil.

Dean leaned forward. “Christo,” he whispered in Blossom’s ear. The horse snorted and tossed her head, but her eyes didn’t go black.

Maybe Blossom was possessed by an angry horse spirit. Dean tilted his head to one side, considering.

“Yo, Cahill? Are horseshoes still made out of iron?”

“Steel or Aluminum.  Sometimes titanium or rubber. It really depends on the type of horse and the work they do.”

“Uh huh. So what would these horses be, uh, shoed with?”

Cahill adjusted his Stetson. “Shod. Not shoed.”

“Right. Yes. Thank you Quint Asper.”

Cahill’s lips twitched. “Our local farrier generally favors steel. Why?”

Dean flashed his most charming smile.  “Just curious. I—” Blossom reared up, whinnying in distress, and tried to throw Dean off her back.

“Whoa there! Easy, girl, easy!”

Blossom tossed her head manically, her eyes wide and frightened. She whirled around and would have bolted back the way they’d come if Cahill hadn’t drawn alongside Dean and taken her reins.   He talked to her in a calming whisper until she settled down some. She still looked about as spooked as a civilian who’d just seen their first poltergeist, but at least she wasn’t actively heading for the hills anymore. Dean frowned. Not that she’d been heading _for_ the hills, as such. More like away from the hills. In fact, despite Cahill’s Horse Whispering act, Blossom seemed to be as close to the hills as she was going to get, digging her hooves into the loose, sandy dirt when he tried to lead her forward. And now the other horses were getting spooked too.

Dean heard the low, deep rumble seconds before the ground around him shuddered, sending up clouds of dust. Blossom reared back again and it took Cahill a good couple of minutes to settle her this time.

“No wonder the horses were so spooked,” he said. “Guess they could feel the pre-tremors or something.”

“Uh, Cahill?” Ronnie called from just up ahead of them. “I think you better come take a look at this.”

~~~

“Give me a little more rope,” Sam called up out of the hole.

Above him, Angel gave him a thumbs-up and passed the request on to Carl and Dodger who anchored the other end of Sam’s rope. They had secured him to one of the ATV’s hitches and lowered him carefully over the edge. Below ground, Sam lit his Maglite, adjusting it for the best coverage and passed the light around the cavernous insides.

His feet touched down in the loose dirt that had fallen from the surface, and it took him a moment to stabilize himself, stepping awkwardly and…wetly onto the bottom of the pit.

“Oh no...That can’t be good,” Sam groaned. He wrinkled his nose and squeezed his eyes shut, building up the courage to look down at what he’d stepped into. He puffed his cheeks, expelling his breath, and then cast the light down.

He swallowed thickly around the bile that rose. No matter how many dead bodies they’d run across in their lives, Sam would never get used to the gore of blood and tissue that always accompanied a particularly gruesome death.

“What is it?” Angel hollered from above.

“Cow,” Sam answered sickly. He cleared his throat and shouted up so they could all hear him, “Just a cow.”

He scanned the ground around him and shook his head in disgust. “Or what’s left of it, anyway,” he muttered.

Sam turned the flashlight to his left, staring hard down the dark length of what seemed to be an endless tunnel. Rotating, he found an identical tunnel. Eyeing the opening, Sam did some fast and dirty calculating and came to the conclusion that he _really_ didn’t want to be underground with something that could make a five foot in diameter hole ten feet below the surface of the ground. Not without a helluvalot of fire power.

“Pull me up outta here!”

~~~

The mound was about five feet wide, running parallel with Murals Road and stretched out towards the mountains as far as the eye could see; which in flat scrubland like this was pretty far.  Dean reached out tentatively and ran his hand across the top of the raised lump of dirt. A section of it collapsed under his touch and he snatched his hand back. When nothing attacked him, he peered down into a hole about ten-foot deep, before glancing back up at Cahill.

“You got any idea what could’ve caused a tunnel like this?” he asked the older man.

Cahill met Dean’s eyes, his jaw clenched. “Well it sure wasn’t a gopher or a chipmunk,” Cahill took his hat off and scratched at his head. “If I had to guess, I’d say manmade. I don’t know of any animal that’d make a tunnel that big.”

Dean got to his feet and brushed his hands off on the back of his jeans. “So,” he ran his tongue over his bottom lip and then grinned. “Wanna follow the tunnel? See where it goes?”

“How does that help us find the boys?”

Dean’s gut told him that whatever had made the tunnel—and he was willing to bet good money that it was a _what_ , not a _who_ —had something to do with the missing boys, but that wasn’t going to fly with Cahill.

“Maybe they fell in somewhere up the line,” he said. “Got hurt.”

Cahill ran a hand over his chin and frowned. Dean widened his arms. “Look man, I don’t know. But it’s…something. It’s part of our search quadrant anyway, so why not just follow the weird tunnel, at least as far as that rocky outcrop.”

Cahill nodded and then looked across at where Ronnie was standing holding all three of the horses. Dean knew just what he was thinking. The horses had refused, with much stomping of hooves and flaring of nostrils, to get any closer to the tunnel. He couldn’t imagine them being willing to follow it.

“How long would it take to walk there?” Dean asked.

“Not long, maybe ten minutes or fifteen in this heat.”

“Okay then,” Dean struck his best Indiana Jones pose. “We walk from here.”

Ronnie sniggered. “You want me to stay here with the elephants?” he held up the reins he was holding. “Make sure they don’t get stolen by the villagers?”

Dean rubbed at the back of his neck. This was a problem. Cahill may have thought the tunnel was man made, but Dean sure as hell didn’t. The way the horses freaked when they got close to it suggested some kind of animal; a predator that the horses instinctively knew to fear. And something that made tunnels five feet wide and ten feet deep? Something that size could take a horse; could carry off a cow. Something that size was definitely worthy of fear.  And Dean was loathe to leave Ronnie by himself when something like that might just cruise on by.

So he suggested tying the horses to a bush. Cahill’s glare was scathing.

In the end, they settled for radioing in to Lyn to let her know what was happening. Cahill, as team leader, took the walkie, but left Ronnie with a flare. The cell coverage out here was non-existent, so if something happened, the kid would have to set off the flare and hope someone saw it.

“Okay, look,” Dean said, clapping Ronnie on the shoulder. “We don’t know what’s going on here. We don’t know who…or what…made that,” he gestured at the tunnel. “But if you see anything, hell, if something just don’t _feel_ right, you send up a flare and you get the hell outta here.  Alright?”

 Ronnie nodded. “If I see a giant gopher, I promise to run.”

Dean ran a hand over his chin. “Yeah. Running is definitely the smart thing to do. If you can run, run. But remember this too: if it bleeds, you can kill it. And decapitation works on most things.”

Ronnie’s eyebrows shot up. “On _all_ things Dean. We’re not in Toontown or a horror movie, you know.”

Dean’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “You say that now,” he muttered, before slapping Ronnie on the shoulder again, then hoisting his backpack and going to say good-bye to Blossom.

“You trust your instincts,” he said as he stroked her nose. “You see anything hinky, anything at all, you bolt. Okay girl?”

Blossom snorted and nuzzled his hand.

Ten minutes later, Dean wrapped his dry lips around the neck of his battered metal canteen and slurped up the last of his water.  The desert sun sure was a killer, even in October.  Dean’s shirt was wrapped turban style around his head, his tee-shirt was wet with sweat, front and back, and he could almost feel the skin peeling off his nose and cheeks.  He and Cahill strode together in silence, their boots clomping on the baked red dirt and dust kicking up from their feet in clouds of orange.

Now that Dean came to think on it, it was strangely quiet. No hum of cicadas, no bird calls, nothing.

Beside him, Cahill cleared his throat. “Maybe it’s got something to do with the copper mine. Maybe they’ve been illegally doing some kind of exploratory drilling or something?”

He looked at Dean with an expression that Dean had seen on civilians a lot over the years. He called it the ‘help-me-find-a-rational-explanation-for-something-that-makes-no-sense’ face.

Dean raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t they drill down? Why drill a long-ass tunnel?”

Cahill’s shoulders slumped and they walked in silence until they got to the base of the rocky outcrop, at which point the tunnel turned into a gaping, ten foot pit..

Cahill took his hat off and clutched it to his chest, before leaning over and gazing into the pit. “Goddamn,” he turned shocked eyes on Dean. “What the hell is goin’ on here? Is this some kinda sink hole? Maybe caused by that tremor we had earlier?”

Something about Cahill’s words triggered a flash of memory, but it was gone before Dean could pin it down. He stared at the hole and frowned. Sinkhole? He rubbed his chin and glanced across at the older man. “You think maybe an old mine collapsed and that line of raised dirt is, I dunno, some kind of after effect from that?”

“Maybe, I mean—”

“Cahill? Is that you?”

Both men looked up sharply. Peering out from a crevice in the rocks above was a boy who couldn’t have been more than sixteen; his face shock-white and his arm held at angle which Dean knew meant it was broken.

“Lucas! Thank God! Where’s Brian?”

Luke’s face collapsed and Dean moved, bounding around the hole and scrambling up onto the rock so that he could catch the kid before the rest of him collapsed too.

“Can’t’ve happened, s’not possible,” the kid muttered as he stumbled into Dean’s arms.

“I gotcha kid. It’s okay. We got a first aid kit. Gonna get a splint on your arm, alright?”

Luke nodded vaguely. “Think I got sunstroke,” he said. “I’ve been hallucinating real bad,” he giggled suddenly. “I thought I saw…I imagined…” he laughed again, the tone edging on hysterical, “but it’s not possible. Must’ve been heatstroke. Where’s Brian? You find Brian yet?”

Dean guided Luke down off the rocky outcrop and sat him in the rock’s shade.

“Drink,” Cahill handed him a canteen of water, which the kid attacked with gusto.

Cahill cleared his throat. “Been a while since I splinted an arm.”

“I’ve field-dressed a few broken bones in my time,” Dean admitted. “I don’t mind taking care of it. We got something to use as a splint?”

Cahill shrugged. “I’ll look for a stick.”

Dean pulled a triangle bandage out of the first aid kit and shook his head. “I’ll just splint it against his chest.

“This is gonna hurt a little,” Dean told the boy. “Take a deep breath,” he arranged the bandage under Luke’s elbow and over his shoulder, and then took hold of his hand and raised his broken arm slowly until the kid’s hand was level with his heart. Luke whimpered. “Easy, kid,” Dean said. “We’re nearly done.” He wrapped the bandage around the arm and tied it off. “So, you up to tellin’ us what happened?”

 Luke shook his head. “I musta been delirious cuz what I saw…what I thought I saw…it doesn’t make any sense.”

“What do you think you saw?” Dean asked.

Luke rubbed a tired hand across his eyes. “Stupid,” he said. “Not possible. A nightmare.”

“Humor us?”

Luke looked straight at Dean, eyes haunted. “It was like that movie,” he whispered. “The one with Kevin Bacon and the…the graboids.”

“Tremors?” Dean’s eyes widened. “You’re saying… _giant worms_?”

“No. Course not. Cuz that’d be crazy,” Luke’s bottom lip quivered. “That’d mean—” tears spilled from his eyes and ran down his face “—that’d mean it ate Brian for real,” his face crumpled. “That it came outta the ground and swallowed him down,” he grasped at Dean’s shirt. “That didn’t happen,” he sobbed. “Please tell me that didn’t happen.”


	5. Chapter Four

It was not quite mid-afternoon, but the sun was already beginning to dip behind the hills, casting long cool shadows across the valley floor as Carl Massina and his team made their way toward the hills. 

Having come up from the pit, Sam had relayed the gruesome details of what he’d found. Carl had been both grieved to learn the fate of his animal and overwhelmingly relieved to know it hadn’t been his son in the bottom of that wretched hole. From that place, the subterranean tunnel had tracked away from the Massina farm; the evidence pointing to a pair of tread marks from two dirt bikes that traveled alongside it.

Convinced that the boys had also found the tunnel, and had set off to track it and its origins down, the group set out after them. Following the trail— moving slowly and spread out with 10ft between them—each man kept a watchful eye on his surroundings as the group searched, hopeful for clues to the boys’ disappearance. For Sam though, hope was sinking like a stone in the pit of his stomach.

He had been careful when describing the scene below ground to Carl, leaving out the extra gory details of how the cow had met her end. He’d allowed the man to believe that it had been the fall that had killed the animal, when in truth there hadn’t been a carcass below the surface, only a splattered mess of partially-digested blood and tissue; a fact that Sam found worrying. Anything that could chew up and spit out a mammal the size of a full grown cow was big. Real big.

Sam played the specifics of what he knew through his mind, working hard to fit them like puzzle pieces into some known criteria that could be found in his dad’s journal. As of yet, nothing was ringing a bell, and he was becoming aggravated by it. Sam needed more information, a break in the case, _something_. With his mind full of questions and incomplete answers, Sam didn’t notice that Carl had dropped back in their search.

It was a high pitched whistle that caught Sam’s attention and had him turning his ATV around. Twenty yards back, Carl had pulled up and cut the engine of his machine. He had the walkie up to his mouth and was animatedly waving his crew back to him.

“What is it?” Sam asked, joining the circle last. “What’s wrong?”

“They found ‘em…alive,” Dodger replied, grinning like a mad man. The older man was leaned over the handlebars, trying to catch as much of the conversation as he could.

Sam let out a sigh of relief. “Thank God.”

“He said Luke,” Angel corrected.  “They found Luke. They didn’t say nuthin’ about Brian yet.”

Carl lifted his hand for quiet and upon his voiceless command they all fell silent and listened.

The reception on the walkie was spotty at best. Sam was able to make out a few vague details, but waited patiently to hear the news from Carl.

“They found him,” he said; relief visibly refreshing the father’s spirits. “He’s hurt and in shock, but alive.”

“That’s great, Carl,” Dodger crowed, clapping the other man on the back.

Carl smiled and then lifted his chin in Sam’s direction. “It was your brother and Cahill what found him. They radioed in and Virgil’s on his way out with the Jeep to pick Luke up. Doc’s on standby—”

“But what about Brian?”

The group collectively turned their eyes on Angel. The boy, who all day had been so laid back and casual about the search that he had appeared uncaring, now looked manic with worry. He was standing on the foot pegs of his vehicle with both hands tucked into his curly dark hair, his breathing unsteady. 

“Nobody’s saying anything about Brian. Why are we still sitting here? We should be out there,” he threw his arm out, waving at the hills, “looking for him.”

“We will, son,” Carl soothed, reaching out to comfort the boy. “We will.”

“Don’t…” Angel snapped, sharply drawing away from the contact.  He clambered off the far side of the ATV, stumbling over his own feet in his escape.

Dodger hollered and made to go after the boy, but Sam caught the older man by the arm. “Leave him alone. You can see he’s got a lot on his mind.”

“Ain’t no call for him actin’ like that.” Dodger snatched his arm out of Sam’s firm grip and shook his head in disapproval. “Not when we just got the good news.”

“Doesn’t seem like it’s all good news to him,” Sam said, thumbing over his shoulder. Ten feet away, Angel was pacing. His arms were wrapped tightly around his midsection and he was talking a mile a minute to himself. The rest of them might not have been able to hear the obviously distressed words, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that this was more than a little outburst.

Sam looked to Carl to fill in the blanks. “He and this Brian kid are friends, I take it.”

“Brothers. Or well…half-brothers. Angel’s daddy stepped out on his mama when he was just a baby and… voilà.”

The news didn’t surprise Sam, not like it did Dodger who was sputtering on his own words. “How di – I – um…”

“S’alright, Dodge. It’s not something they advertise.”

“Small town like this?” Sam’s eyebrows crept up his forehead, surprised. “Gossip tends to run rampant whether you want it to or not.”

“Small towns are like small boats, Sam. It doesn’t take much to capsize one, but we’re not like most small towns.”

“Yeah. I’m starting to get that. So what’s our next move?”

Carl rubbed his chin and shot a sheepish look over at the still-pacing Angel. “Well I’m gonna meet up with Virgil and my boy and go into the Doc’s with him. You all should keep following the tunnel. Maybe we’ll find Brian injured somewhere too,” he unclipped the walkie from his belt and handed it over to Dodger. “Let us know if you—” A burst of static and panicked shouting erupted from the device and Dodger almost dropped it.

_“Mayday, mayday! [tschhhhh] somethi— [tschhhhh] atta— [tschhhhh] omigod [tschhhhh] what [tschhhhh] —ell? [tschhhhh] —king hu— [tschhhhh] Holy fu— [tschhhhh]—”_

“What is it?” Angel rejoined them. “What was that on the walkie? Did they find Brian?”

“Eric?” Carl said. “Is that you? This is Carl. What’s goin’ on? Over.”

_“Carl? It’s Cahill. Is everything all right? Over.”_

“We’re fine. That was Eric. Eric can you hear me? Is everything alright?”

There was nothing from the Motorola but static.

_“Carl? Eric’s team is searching out toward Silver Hill, right? Your team is closer. Any chance a couple of you could check it out?”_

Sam put a hand to Carl’s shoulder. “Happy to,” he said.

“ _Sammy! Sammy!_ ” Dean’s voice broke in over the radio. “ _You be careful out there.  I don’t know for sure, but crazy as it sounds, I’m thinkin’ graboids. You copy that?_ ”

Sam frowned.

Carl, meanwhile, looked from Sam to Dodger and back again. “Yeah,” he nodded. “Sam and Dodger can go out there. Angel can come with me—”

 “Like hell, I’m goin’ with you. If Brian’s out there somewhere, I gotta find him.”

Dodger bristled and looked like he was fixing to have words with the younger man, but Carl shook his head minutely and Dodger subsided.

“Angel,” he locked eyes with the younger man. “You right to lead Sam out there?”

Angel nodded and Carl clapped him on the back. “Alright.  Give Sam the walkie, Dodge. We’re on it Cahill. I’ll see you at that rendezvous point we set up in,” he checked his watch, “in fifteen minutes.”

“ _Roger that, Carl_.” The radio clicked off, with Dean still yelling in the background.

As Sam took the walkie-talkie from Dodger he cleared his throat and said, “Carl, can I just have a quick word in private?”

Carl frowned, but allowed himself to be led to one side, out of earshot of the others. Sam glanced back at the group just in time to see Angel scowl and fold his arms across his chest.

“I know Angel don’t exactly live up to his namesake,” the older man said suddenly. “And I’ll admit he wouldn’t look outta place in a prison yard, but—”

“What?” Sam frowned. “No. That’s not… Look, I didn’t want to say anything when your son was still missing, and I didn’t want to say anything in front of Angel because his half-brother is still missing, but that cow I found? Let’s just say it was less cow and more partially-digested ground beef.”

Carl’s eyebrows shot up beneath the brim of his hat. “What the hell?” he breathed.

Sam nodded. “Whatever’s going on—it’s bad, Carl. And this?” he waved the Motorola, “this is not good. And Angel’s just a kid. I really think you should take him with you.”

Carl smiled wryly. “Well, listen to you, Grandpa. You’re what? Twenty-one? Twenty-two?”

Sam drew himself up to this full height and squared his shoulders. “I can take care of myself.”

“So can Angel. He may only be nineteen, but he’s one hell of a shot. He can hit his mark, reload a pump shotgun and hit his mark again in about four seconds.”

Sam was grudgingly impressed.

“I just don’t like the idea of anyone out there on their own right now,” Carl continued, “I like it even less with what you just told me. But if it’ll make you feel better, when I meet up with the others, I’ll get them to head your way while I go into town with Luke and Virgil.”

Angel gave Sam the stink-eye when he and Carl rejoined the others, assuming, Sam guessed, that Sam had been objecting to working with a ‘tattooed punk’.  Sam figured he’d have to find some way of extending an olive branch and letting him know that wasn’t the case. As the two of them rode out together, Angel slightly in front so that he could lead the way, Sam pondered Dean’s cryptic comment. Graboids? The word sounded familiar; like something he should know.  If only he had his laptop.

The country out beyond Silver Hill was flat and dry, and out on the horizon Sam could see the winding tower of a mine shaft and a bunch of fibro-cement out-buildings surrounded by cyclone fencing.  He was so busy watching the horizon that he almost failed to realize that Angel had come to a sudden stop.  The kid was off his ATV and retching into blood-soaked dirt before Sam had even stopped.  Sam squeezed the brakes harder and zigzagged to a halt, throwing up a cloud of dust that made his eyes water. He swung down from the quad bike, clumsy in his haste, his feet slipping in red-slicked sticky goo, as he picked his way to Angel’s side. He squatted down and put a hand to the kid’s shoulder, the bitter iron tang of too much blood causing his nostrils to flare.

“You okay?” he asked.

The look Angel gave him could’ve cut glass.  “I’m better ‘an Eric Proctor,” he said.

Sam’s eyes sliced across to the corpse beside them. “He was a friend?”

 “It’s a small town,” Angel waved vaguely in Chloride’s direction. “Everybody knows everybody,” he glanced at what was left of Eric Proctor and finally lost the battle to keep his shock from showing on his face.  “¡Dios mío!” he shuddered. “What _happened_ to him?”

“Honestly? No clue. I would’ve said he got bit by a Great White Shark, only,” Sam spread his arms wide. “We’re in the middle of a freakin’ desert.”

Angel pulled himself to his feet, his wide eyes darting about. When he spoke his voice was a whole octave higher than usual. “You think the rest of him got ate? You think some tunneling thing came outta that hole?” he nodded at the small crater a few feet ahead of them.  He met Sam’s eyes and by unspoken agreement the two of them approached the hole cautiously and peered inside.

~~~

Dean raised an eye to the sky and scowled at the half dozen turkey vultures that had gathered overheard. “How far is it from here to town?” he asked without losing sight of the airborne scavengers.

“Just a few minutes by vehicle,” said Cahill.

“And how long’s it been?”

Cahill looked at his watch and rolled his eyes. “‘Bout ten minutes, give or take. You got a hot date or somethin’?”

“No.” Dean stood up from the limestone seat he’d made and shook his leg, trying to adjust some feeling back into his hip. “Just don’t like sittin’ around when we’ve got work to do, is all.”

“Yeah, well, I can get behind that philosophy, I guess,” Cahill agreed, wiping his hand across his brow before sliding his hat back into place.

On the south-facing slope of the mountains, the rocky foothills provided little protection from the afternoon sun that reflected hotly off the granite, which wasn’t helping Luke any. They’d given him water and set up a makeshift shade using the shock blanket Cahill had packed in his gear, but the boy needed more medical attention than a bit of field dressing could provide.  Add to that the fact that Sam and the rest of the searchers were quite probably walking blind, and Dean was fit to come unglued; a fact which didn’t go unnoticed by Cahill.

“Look, Carl’ll be here pretty quick…” he said stealing Dean’s attention away from the rocks that he was anxiously kicking. “With their 4-wheelers, we can manage to bring young Luke down out of these hills and meet up with Virgil that much faster.  So, if you wanna head out on foot to where Ronnie is and help him gather the horses, I wouldn’t object.”

Dean considered the offer for a moment, torn between staying to help with Luke and leaving to find Sam. The want in Dean, the instinct to hunt whatever sonuvabitchin’ thing had caused all this was strong. Real strong. And Dean found himself easily persuaded. “Yeah,” he nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, I could do that.”

Dean made his way down out of the foothills and onto the valley floor just as the high pitched whine of twin quad bikes broke over the horizon. It eased his mind a bit to know that Luke would soon be on his way back to town and away from the Hell he had obviously faced over the last twenty-four plus hours.

Worms…Dean shook his head in disbelief. He’d seen a lot of things in his twenty-seven years, but giant killer worms? Those were the things nightmares were made of. Nightmares and really bad movies…not that Tremors was a bad movie. Tremors was a great movie, but damn…where the Hell were they gonna get the kind of explosives needed to blow a giant killer worm to kingdom come? The only guy he knew had those kinds of munitions was back in Lincoln, Nebraska. What Dean really needed was to confab with his brother.

Problem was, Sam was heading in the opposite direction, toward the most recent attack and most likely toward the giant killer worm, itself…without Dean. The thought of his little brother facing off against this thing alone set Dean’s teeth on edge. ‘It’ll be fine,’ he’d said.  Well it _wasn’t_ fine. It was miles away from being fine.

Lost in his head and chewing himself out over the decision to ever stop in Chloride to begin with, Dean didn’t notice the deep rhythmic thum-thum-thump of hooves until the trio of horses was practically on top of him. His arms went up instinctively to protect himself and in doing so, caused the lead horse to rear up and its frightened scream to echo loudly off the mountains around them.

“Whoa!” He scrambled for and caught hold of a loose rein—Blossom’s rein, as luck would have it—and he held on tightly. The mare fought hard to free herself and escape with the other horses. She tossed her head and pulled Dean off balance, but wasn’t able to shake him loose.

“Whoa,” he repeated, dropping his voice down into a deep, soothing tone as he moved up to take a firm hold of her bridle. “Easy girl. Easy Blossom.”

She nickered nervously, but seemed to calm slightly under his touch.

Dean ran a hand up her neck to rub idly at her velvety soft ear, all the while speaking quiet comforting words to her. He wondered how Blossom and the other horses had come to escape and began to worry about the boy he’d left behind to watch over them and cussed himself. “Dammit, I never should have left the kid alone.”

He scanned the lower scrubland, looking for any sign of Ronnie and pulled up short when his eyes stumbled over a thin trail of white-grey flare smoke. “Dammit,” he repeated.

Dean threw the reins up over Blossom’s neck and grabbed the saddle horn in one hand.  “You’re gonna have to trust me, girl,” he warned and then swung up into the saddle like a pro.

The mare danced nervously, her ears ticking forward and back, awaiting his command. Dean moved in his seat, squeezed his legs and gave a soft hiss. That was all it took and she was off at a full gallop, Dean leaning into her gait as she powered across the land, racing back to Ronnie.

~~~

“Oh man,” Angel moaned. He turned away from the crater, his hands on his knees and his breathing uneven. “You think that’s Pete and Dave?”

Sam wrinkled his nose. “Hard to tell. Was this team on horseback or quad bikes?”

Angel didn’t reply, just straightened up and put his hands to his head, muttering under his breath in what sounded like it might have been Spanish.

Sam put a hand to his forehead to shield his eyes from the sun’s glare and looked around for any sign of vehicles, horses or monsters. There was a tunnel mound just beyond the hole, stretching out into the distance, but no sign of anything else out of place.

Sam unclipped the walkie from his belt. “Carl? Cahill? You guys read me?”

Cahill’s no-nonsense voice crackled into the air. _“I copy Sam. Did you boys find Eric’s team alright?”_

“Yeah. Well. We found Eric, anyway. He’s dead.”

_“Say again, Sam?”_

“Eric Proctor is dead. No sign of the others, but there’s a lot of blood out here.”

There was a rushed intake of breath and then a moment’s silence before Cahill came back on the air. _“You’re sure Eric’s dead?”_

“Yessir,” Sam said. He hesitated. “There’s nothing of him below the waist.”

Sam heard a muttered ‘ _Goddamn_ ’ and then Cahill said, “ _I’ll call it into Lyn. Get her to notify the sheriff. Doesn’t sound like there’s much more you can do out there. Maybe we better regroup, try to figure out what in Hades is goin’ on.”_

“Do you mind if I have a quick word with my brother?” Sam interrupted.

_“He’s not here. Went out to fetch Ronnie back. We left him with the horses.  You boys should come and join us at the rendezvous point too.”_

Sam agreed and ended the conversation, clipping the walkie back onto his belt, his forehead creased and his mouth set. He would’ve really appreciated the chance to talk this through with Dean; ask him about his cryptic comment and talk through what type of monster could’ve been responsible for Eric’s injuries.

“Sam!” Angel’s voice had an edge to it. “We’re about to have company.”

~~~

Dean may have been deaf to anything other than the thundering of hooves and the whistle of warm wind against his face, but he could see Ronnie. The kid was alive—Thank God— and waving frantically, both arms swinging in full wide arches above his head. Dean urged his mare on and she responded in kind although Dean knew that she was fighting against her instinct to flee.

“Ron! You alright there, buddy?”

“It’s not me,” Ronnie answered, his eyes wide with alarm. He pointed off into the distance and shouted “It’s him!”

Dean followed Ronnie’s line of sight. He hadn’t noticed it before, but now that he was mounted he could see that further towards town, a vehicle was in distress. He could hear the groan of its four wheels, spinning idly, kicking dirt and rock into the air like a fountain of debris.  

It was a black Jeep Wrangler, the same one that he’d seen in town and belonged to the man who Cahill had called on to come out and fetch Luke. The irony was not lost on Dean that the rescue vehicle was in need of rescuing.

“Come on!” Dean reached out for Ronnie. “Come on!”

Ronnie grasped hold of Dean’s forearm and pulled himself up on Blossom’s back, flinging the gear from the saddle as he quickly settled behind Dean, and they took off across the plain.

“That’s Virgil’s Jeep,” Ronnie hollered through the wind. “What the Hell’s wrong, do you think?”

“Don’t know for positive, kid, but it ain’t good.” He looked back over his shoulder at the young man. The kid looked so young, Dean had to swallow down the big brother urge to take the kid as far away from danger as possible, but they’d come too far. There was no turning back now. They’d just have to power through and hope that he could protect Ronnie and see him back to his family safe when this was over. “Can you fire a weapon?” Dean asked.

They might have been galloping at full speed, but Dean didn’t miss Ronnie’s eyebrow quirk up as if to say, ‘D’uh.’

“Alright then.” Dean tugged his .22 free from the saddle scabbard, nearly unseating himself in the process, and then passed the rifle back to the boy.

“What do I need this for?” Ronnie yelled, plastering himself to Dean’s back as he tried to balance the added weight of the gun.

“We’re about to find out!”

~~~

 A powdery orange haze trailed the fast-approaching Jeep.  Sam licked at his lips, considering their options. What if it wasn’t something supernatural going on out here? What if they’d stumbled over something mob related? Didn’t the mafia like to bury people out here in the back blocks? Maybe the tunnels were some kind of mass grave? Maybe Eric was killed because he saw something he shouldn’t have. Maybe Sam had misheard Dean; maybe he’d said Gambiono. Or Gagliano.

“Sam?” Angel edged a little closer to him, his expression wary. “You don’t think…?” he nodded at Eric’s corpse and then looked back at the Jeep, bigger now, closer. Olive green, Sam thought blankly, one man in the driver’s seat, another in the passenger seat.

“Get your rifle,” Sam said. He positioned the ATVs side by side, creating a makeshift barrier and then picked up his own gun, holding it loosely by his side, ready to bring it up and into action if he needed to.

The Jeep stopped a little way away and the men, Native American, Sam could see now, climbed out, their steps cautious and their eyes wary.

“Hey now,” the one closest, wearing black jeans and a light grey tee-shirt emblazoned with the words Arizona Wildcats 1885, held his hands up in a gesture of submission. His face closed up tight when he spotted Eric. “Friend of yours?”

Sam nodded. “We got a Mayday call over the walkie. Found him like this.”

The newcomers glanced at each other.

“You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” Sam said.

The Wildcat shook his head. “I’m Noah. This is my cousin Blake. We’re with the Hualapai Natural Resources Administration.”

“Do you know what’s causing these tunnels?” Angel asked.

 Noah shook his head. The other man, Blake, spoke up for the first time. “You mind putting those guns down? They’re makin’ me nervous, man.”

Sam nodded at Angel and they complied with the request. “You know of anything out here that could do that?” he asked, nodding at Eric.

Blake and Noah shared an uneasy glance. “No,” Noah said finally. “But something...not good…is going on. We’ve had reports of a lot of dead birds and gophers. Sick coyotes too.  We found flooding out past the mine and took some samples. They had a lot of these raised dirt mounds around there too.”

Sam raised his eyebrows. “You think maybe they had a dam failure?”

Blake nodded. “I think the base of their tailings pond cracked, and contaminated water leaked out into the surrounds.  They’re a pretty unscrupulous company. We’ve had to report them to the State Mining Inspector more than once.”

Sam briefly considered the possibility of a Godzilla-like creature, some poor local lizard mutated by contaminated water, bursting from beneath the sand to wreak havoc on the local human population. He shook his head with a wry smile. He’d clearly read far too many of Dean’s Japanese comic books as a kid. It did raise the question though; if a local mining company was trying to cover up a serious breach of health and safety regulations, then maybe this wasn’t their kind of thing after all? Maybe it was just asshats being asshats.

“You think the mining company could’ve had something to do with this?” he waved at Eric.

Noah ran a nervous hand through his hair. “I wouldn’t have said so. They’re unethical, but I wouldn’t have said they were murderers.”

Sam pursed his lips and then gestured out at the crater and the tunnels. “And there’s no natural, geological explanation for this that you can think of? The flood from the tailings pond couldn’t be causing the tunnels?”

Noah scrubbed at his forehead and then shook his head.

“What about local legends? Are there any that could maybe explain all this?”

Angel looked at him thoughtfully, but Blake looked positively affronted. “Dude,” he said, “just because we work for the Hualapai Tribal Council, it doesn’t make us ‘noble savages’ with some kind of arcane knowledge. I’m a Biosystems Engineer, Noah is an Agricultural Engineer. You wanna talk Myths and Legends, call up the Cultural Department.”

Sam held his hands up. “Sorry, man. I didn’t mean to cause offense.”

Noah moved closer to Eric’s body and peered down at it and then looked down into the crater. “You call this in to the police?”

“I called it in to our team leader, Ben Cahill. He said he was going to radio the search base and have them contact the sheriff.”

Angel pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and rubbed hard. “You know, there are legends in the South, in Mexico, in Brazil, of the minhocão.  It’s supposed to be some kind of giant, underground worm-like creature, big enough to prey on cattle, and to leave tunnels like these. You think we could have something like that here, Sam?”

Sam’s eyes became improbably large. “That’s where I’ve heard the word Graboids before. It’s from that movie Dean made me watch when I was eight. And then every damn time it was on TV for the next ten years!” he snapped his fingers. “Tremors. With Kevin Bacon. Giant worms. Holy shit.”

Blake raised an eyebrow. “Dude. What’ve you been smoking?”

“So there are no local Indian legends about giant worms?”

Blake scowled. “Okay, firstly, do I look like I’m from Mumbai or Delhi to you? I’m a member of the Hualapai tribe. If you must, I’m Native American. I’m not Indian. And secondly, seriously? I mean, _seriously_? Giant worms? Are you listening to yourself? I’m an engineer. I don’t deal in superstition.”

The words were barely out of Blake’s mouth when a tremor shook the earth around them and another tunnel began to form in the middle distance.

Blake paled; quite some feat, given his natural skin tone. “What the hell?” he breathed.

“Minhocão,” Angel said flatly.

“Come in to town with us,” Sam urged the Hualapai engineers. “We’ll talk this out; see if we can figure out what’s going on.”

Blake and Noah nodded slowly. “We’ll follow you,” Noah said.

“Hey,” Angel called out as they headed for their Jeep. “Maybe you should call your Cultural guys on the way and get the skinny on local legends?”

“What?” he said, when he caught Sam studying him.

“You really believe it could be a giant worm?”

Angel shrugged. “We’re a ghost town on the edge of a desert. We’ve learned to be open-minded around here.”

~~~

Twenty feet away from Virgil, Dean’s horse came to an abrupt stop, crow-hopping anxiously and refusing to go any further. She pranced and threw her head, circling around while Dean tried to urge her forward, but it was no use.

Too far away to be of any real help, all they could do was watch as the vehicle tipped up on its back axle, rocking and surging like a boat on a tempest sea.

“What is it?” Ronnie gasped and Dean cursed inwardly. They couldn’t see the beast, just the raised ground, dirt and rock pushed up and out, opening the earth like a giant maw waiting to chomp and tear and swallow the Jeep down whole. It belched and coughed out dust, painting the truck and Virgil in a cloud of rust colored dirt.

Dean shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth to aim his voice. “You’re gonna have to jump for it. Jump now!”

“Come on Virg,” Ronnie pleaded, beckoning the man to get out of his vehicle. “Get out of there!”

The man _was_ trying, but every time he clambered to get free, he was knocked back into the seats or thrown half out of the vehicle which had him scrambling in fright to get back into the safety of the Jeep.

“We can’t just sit here,” Ronnie cried. Dean shook his head. Even though he agreed, he was struggling with a no-win situation. Going to Virgil’s aid meant leaving the horse and stranding all of them in the middle of nowhere with a giant killer worm. Whereas staying with the horse meant watching Virgil get eaten alive.

The decision was taken away from him, however, when Ronnie threw his leg over and slipped to the ground, running.

“Sonuvabitch.” Dean tried one last time to press Blossom on before giving up and jumping from the horse’s back, tearing after Ronnie on foot. “Ron, dammit. Wait!”

Behind him, Blossom whinnied in terror, her sweaty sides heaving and her eyes rolling wildly. She took off at a gallop, back the way they’d come, just as Dean reached for Ronnie.

He caught the boy, grabbing him around the waist just as the ground shifted and the inky black head of the creature broke through, knocking the Jeep on its side. Ronnie fell back against Dean’s chest and in the scramble to escape, toppled them both onto the ground, tangled together.

The monstrous thing emerged further from the hole and rose up, lifting its hefty body straight up in the air like a cobra, ready to strike. It was covered in large, black scales, and appeared to be sightless, using multiple tentacle-like appendages as big as Dean’s arm to direct it. They stuck out at all angles from the creature’s armored head and moved independently as if scenting the air, but Dean knew that wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t scenting. It was feeling, sensing their movement…their vibrations.

The graboid—because pending further intel that’s what Dean was going to call it—turned suddenly, seeming to focus its attention on them. It towered over them, and Dean could feel Ronnie tense up in terror. He tightened his grip around the boy’s chest and whispered a command into the back of the boy’s head: “Don’t move.”

Ronnie nodded, ever so slightly; his hair tickling Dean’s chin. This was _not_ a good situation. Knocked to the ground with Ronnie trapped practically on top of Dean, left the kid exposed and Dean helpless to maneuver quickly. He couldn’t fight off an attack from this position.

Worse yet, Dean’s rifle – which Ronnie had been carrying – had been knocked out of the kid’s hand when they’d fallen, and Dean’s own handgun was tucked securely into the back of his jeans, pressing uncomfortably into his back beneath him. 

There was a deep, rumbling hiss followed by a wave of dirt cascading down around their feet as the graboid pushed its thick, black body up and out of the earth. It was much more than Dean had expected and he swallowed down the knowledge that this…was not going to be resolved by decapitation. Damn. He hadn’t _meant_ to prove Ronnie wrong.

As the great beast moved, the ground shifted and fell away beneath the Jeep where Virgil lay trapped and unmoving. The vehicle rocked, teetering on the edge of the opened earth, and Dean could only watch in horror as the graboid swung its attention toward the moving vehicle. It shrieked, a glass-shattering sound that had them clasping their hands over their ears. It was enough to bring Virgil around, and the man scrambled, in his half-conscious state, to get free of the vehicle, to put distance between himself and the monster bearing down on him, but it was too little, too late. There was no saving the man. Dean clasped a hand over Ronnie’s mouth and held the struggling boy tight in his arms as the beast claimed Virgil. 

 


	6. Chapter Five

As a primary producer, Carlos Massina was eligible to get conditional road registration for his ATVs, which meant they had been modified to include both horns and headlights. When the walkie at Sam’s belt squawked, he hit the horn, flashed his lights and slowed to a stop. Angel, who had been in the lead, circled back and parked beside Sam, and Noah and Blake pulled up behind him.

 “Cahill?” Sam said into the walkie. “Is that you?”

  _“Yeah. It’s me,’_ the man hesitated. _“Neither your brother nor Virgil are here yet. And…we saw…we thought we saw…there was this god-awful shriek and then…”_ Cahill’s swallow was audible, even through the walkie, _“we’re almost a mile away, but it looked like some kinda big anaconda.”_

“Hijo de la chingada,” Angel muttered. “It’s a minhocão, I swear to God.”

_“Is that Angel I can hear cussing?”_ Dodger broke in, his voice thick with disapproval.

Angel was unapologetic. “You’d cuss too if you’d seen what we saw.”

“We’ll check it out,” Sam interrupted. “Whereabouts were they?”

Cahill gave them directions, and Angel nodded and went to take the lead again. Sam put a hand to his arm. “Hold up,” he said. “We don’t know what we’re heading into here, but we should at least try to be prepared before we go charging in.”

Sam turned to Noah and Blake who were idling behind them in the Jeep.  “You guys ever heard anything about anaconda in these parts?”

“Minhocão,” Angel hissed.

Noah shook his head. “Nothing. Not about anaconda or minhocão. Blake got on the radio to the office, reported the death and asked them to look into the local history, myths, legends and so on.”

Sam looked at Blake. “They’re gonna get back to me,” Blake said. 

Sam nodded. “You got anything that could be used as a weapon?”

“Got a rifle in the back,” Blake said. “Other than that,” he frowned. “We got some tools and equipment, but nothing that could do any damage to something big enough to rip a man in two.”

“We’ve got a box of flares,” Noah said. “That could be enough to scare it off. Most animals aren’t fond of fire.”

~~~

Ronnie struggled, crying out against the hand clasped firmly over his mouth, but Dean refused to relent. “Stop,” he whispered harshly. “You draw attention to yourself, you’re gonna get us both killed.” The worm moved, knocking the Jeep over, searching for any bits of Virgil it might have missed.  Dean swallowed down the bile that rose up in his throat, even as he was, his mind clicked into planning mode. They couldn’t stay.  Not if they were to have any hope of surviving. But where could they go? The rocky outcrop that could serve as protection was too far. They’d never make it without some kind of distraction. Any trees near enough to reach were too low to the ground. They’d already seen that thing bring the mass of its body straight out of the ground. If they ran for it, that thing would track them through their vibrations, but he had to get Ronnie to safety. That was the priority. He wondered briefly about the horses. Would Blossom make it back to town alright or was she destined to become worm-fodder? “Okay,” he said in Ronnie’s ear, voice low, “here’s what we’re gonna do. On the count of three, we’re gonna stand up real slow-like.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“You can. I’m gonna help you. Look,” Dean said, pointing towards the wreckage that was Virgil’s Jeep.  “It’s preoccupied right now and we’re going to take advantage of that fact. Real slow, we’re just gonna climb to our feet and stand real still, alright?”

Ronnie nodded once and on the mark, stood up with the fluency only youth could allow. He twisted his upper body and offered Dean his hand, and in the next moment, Dean was on his feet too. They stood perfectly still and yet much too close for comfort, waiting with bated breath to see if the worm would notice.

It did not. Instead, it sank, retreating slowly back into the earth.

“It’s over,” Ronnie said on a sigh of relief.  “Can we get out of here, now?”

“Nah, kid. It’s not over. Didn’t you ever watch horror movies? The monster always comes back.”

Without taking a step, Dean reached down and retrieved a rock from the ground. He bounced it in his hand, feeling its weight and deciding that it was heavy enough to do the trick. He brought his arm back and baseball threw the stone out across the gaping hole in the ground. It smacked the wrecked Jeep with a twang and then landed with a heavy thud in the loose dirt.

Dean began to count silently on his fingers, one, two…the beast surged up, attacking the Jeep again.

“Jesus Christ,” Ronnie whispered through his shaking hands. “What are we gonna do?”

Dean swept down and picked up a second and third stone from the ground. “I’m going to distract it, and you’re gonna run like hell. That’s what we’re gonna do.”

Ronnie shook his head fervently. “Run for it? Running's not a plan! Running's what you do, once a plan fails! Besides, I can’t leave yo–”

“You can and you will. You run. You don’t stop. You don’t turn around…no matter _what_ you hear. You got me? The most important thing is that we get you to high rocky ground.”

“But I can help. I can fight.”

“Fight what? Did you not see that thing? Listen. Listen _to me_ ,” Dean emphasized when Ronnie turned stubbornly away. “You have a family at home to take care of. That is your main concern; getting home to them. Now, I’m gonna lead it away from you and when I tell you to, you pedal your ass as fast as you can, that-a-way,”

Ronnie looked off towards the rocky outcrop and glanced back at Dean, worry creasing his brow.

“You’ll make it. Trust me. I’m gonna keep Big Chief here off of ya, okay? You get to Cahill. He’s up there with Luke. You get there and you hold up with them until help arrives.”

“Okay.”

“And if you find my brother, you tell him to haul ass back here. Quick.” Dean stooped and grabbed up a few more large rocks, carefully lowering them into the sling he’d made of his tshirt. “Alright, you ready? Don’t run until I say.”

“I won’t,” Ronnie promised.

With a nod of approval, Dean lobbed the first rock into the air, landing it on the far side of the hole, several feet beyond the Jeep wreckage. The earth groaned; dirt and rock vibrating around their feet as the creature moved, but it did not breach the surface. Dean cocked his head and frowned.

“I’m going this way,” Dean said, pointing off toward the hole. “Gonna draw it away from you. Every step I take, you’re gonna take one, going that way. We move when it moves. Got it?”

He didn’t wait for an answer; just pulled back and let a series of rocks sail, each one a bit further off. The Worm followed, moving slowly as though it was stalking the deep thuds of rock falling into the rust colored soil. And every time the Worm moved, Dean and Ronnie did too; taking advantage of the distraction. Dean worked his way around the exterior of the hole, putting as much space between himself and Ronnie as he could, because when he put his plan into action, Ronnie was going to need that distance if he was going to get clear of the danger.

Every painfully careful step Dean took was timed just right so that it would coincide with the Worm’s own movements. Every rock thrown moved the Worm further away from Ronnie, until the kid was at the bottom of a short, brush covered hill. It was now or never. Dean gathered his wits, met Ronnie’s worried look and took a deep breath. He raised three fingers into the air and began the countdown. 3 – 2 – “Run!”

Ronnie took off, clambering up and over the gentle slope; out of sight, and Dean ran the opposite direction, making sure his heavy footfalls would draw the beast’s attention towards him and away from the younger man. The Worm rounded immediately; ignoring the rocks Dean was still throwing and instead zeroing in on Dean’s own rhythmic movements.  The plan was working; going exactly as planned except for one minor detail. The Worm was following at a surprisingly lazy pace.

It should have made Dean wary. Should have triggered warning bells, but all it did was lull him into a false sense of security. He ran and the Worm stayed on course for twenty feet or better, until suddenly it wasn’t there anymore.

Dean skidded to a stop and waited with his arms and legs outstretched, ready to bolt. He held his breath and looked around him for ‘Worm sign’, but there was none. No earthquake-like tremor underfoot, no vibrating rock, no dirt crumbling away from the raised mound, nothing.

“What are you up to?” he wondered aloud. Somewhere along the line the Worm had stopped pursuing him, and now Dean just couldn’t be sure where it was.  He took a tentative step and then another when the first didn’t bring the monster to the surface. Looking around, Dean rolled his eyes. Chloride was to the west. An entire town of innocent people; couldn’t go west. And scrubland spanned the southern horizon, dotted by uneven, rocky soil and knee high brush that would trip him up and slow him down, miles of desert and no safety in sight. “Yeah, this was a _bad_ idea.”

He needed to get himself somewhere safe too; somewhere he could regroup. He’d sent Ronnie to the foothills and Cahill. There he’d be protected. And the hill over which Ronnie had fled was at least 300 yards behind him; a good head start for the kid and a step in the right direction. That was where safety lay—in the rocky foothills of the Cerbat Mountains. Dean put a hand to his brow and wiped at the sheen of sweat that threatened to run into his eyes and squinted back the way he’d just come. Maybe he should just make a run for it? Maybe the Worm had really gone. Maybe it was full. Maybe it had a piece of Virgil stuck in its teeth and wanted to go home and floss before it ate again. Maybe Dean was getting sunstroke. He inclined his head to one side. Why was there suddenly a mist of fine orange powder hovering above the ground?

Dean had barely finished the thought when the earth around him shuddered, causing him to lose his footing. The ground gave way, and he fell, crashing chest first into the rough dirt, his hands scrambling for purchase. He grabbed hold of the nearest tree, tugging himself back onto solid ground just as the Worm rose up from its tunnel. Holding tight to the narrow trunk, Dean yanked his Colt out of his waistband with his free hand, turned and fired the .45 straight into the head of the emerging Worm. It reared up, screeching in pain—or anger, Dean couldn’t tell which—and exposed its softer, more vulnerable throat. Dean fired three more shots and felt satisfaction watching the bullets tear through the unprotected flesh, splattering blood and tissue across the sand.

The sound it made was ear piercing; angry and annoyed, not critically injured like Dean had hoped. It tossed its head from side to side in an attempt to shake off the sting of Dean’s bullets, and Dean was left with no reaction time as the big black head swung down like a club and knocked him end over end across the desert floor.

_Get up. Get up. Get up. Get Up_! Over and over,  _Get up!_  Blood pumped through his ears; pounding out a heavy and insistent rhythm, urging him into action, but Dean couldn’t pull himself up to his feet. He hurt all over and his head swam so much that he couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes for fear of the world tipping over into vertigo. He tried to raise his head; tried to push himself up from the ground and do what it was his muddled brain was demanding: Get Up and RUN before that  _thing_  eats you! But it was useless.  _He_  was useless. He flopped over on his back and groaned, the whole left side of his body alight with pain from the dual collision—the Worm hitting _him_ and then _him_ hitting the rough ground. And when he touched a particularly tender place above his elbow, his hand came away tacky with blood.

Dean felt the earth vibrate beneath him.  _Get up!_  He felt sand and dirt and gravel shower lightly around him.  _Get up!_  He felt a shadow drape over him, and he raised his uninjured arm to defend against the attack. Immediately his hand was grabbed. Hot and slick and rough, it pulled a yelp out of Dean’s throat, and then pulled him up off his back.

“Dean! Get up!”

“Sammy?” Dean’s eyes popped open and the world spun, but only long enough for Dean to get his bearings. Sam looked down on him from above, and it was then that Dean realized that he was lying on the hill; his feet pointed up and his head pointed down.

Sam tightened his grip and wrapped his long fingers around Dean’s wrist, urging his brother up. “We gotta go, Dean.”

Dean let Sam pull him to his feet and he quickly clambered on to the back of the quad; his chest pressing solidly against his brother’s back as they peeled off, back up the hill.  “Where is it?”

“Close,” Sam squinted against the wind and shielded his eyes from the glare of the sun and scanned the area for any sign of the creature. “I scared it off with a flare, but it didn’t go far. Here, take these. We’re probably gonna need them again.” Sam passed a gunny sack over his shoulder.

Dean peered into the bag and found a plethora of handmade flares. He eyed them appreciatively for a moment and then frowned. “These things worked against the Mohave Death Worm?” Dean questioned, skeptically. “I mean, you have seen this thing, right? It’s huge. What’s a little flare gonna do against it?”

“Kept you from getting eaten, didn’t it? Dude, what were you even thinking? Trying to out run it. Reckless.”

“I was trying to get the kid to…Ronnie! Have you seen him?”

“Scrawny kid? Dark hair, about nineteen or so? Angel picked him up.”

“Thank God.” They cleared the hill and were met by a Jeep carrying two men Dean hadn’t seen before, and a second quad that pulled up alongside them with Ronnie riding double behind a boy Dean assumed was Angel. “You alright, kid? Dean called out.

“Yeah. You?”

The ground rumbled beneath them, shaking the moving vehicles noticeably as a fine dust rose up around them.

“I’ll be a helluva lot better when we can get out of this sand encrusted nightmare. Sammy, get us outta here!”

“Get ready,” Sam shouted back at him, pouring the speed on, and then looking back at the younger men and giving Angel a commanding look.

Dean untangled his fingers from the gear rack where he was holding on for dear life, and dug into the bag of flares. Across from him, Ronnie was doing the same. They each removed the caps of several flares and prepared to strike them.

The other ATV gave a sudden lurch, jostling its riders and eliciting twin shouts from the younger men. Ronnie stuck the first flare and dropped it over the side of the vehicle right as the Worm breached the surface. The flare bounced harmlessly off the Worm’s armor plated head.

“Get under it,” Dean yelled, touching the roughly shaved column of his own throat. “The top is protected. Gotta go for the soft underbelly.”

Ronnie stuck a second flare and dumped it over the side. This time the flaming stick hit its mark. The Worm screeched and slammed its head sidelong into Angel’s ATV, knocking the machine on its side and throwing the boys onto the ground. The Worm dove back into the earth, a low, pained complaint resounding from the hole it left behind.

“You boys okay?” Sam asked, pulling up next to them. Angel waved him off and both boys scrambled to their feet and lifted the 4wheeler; the machine rocking back onto its wheels.

Blake and Noah joined a moment later; Blake leaning out the window of his door. “This isn’t working,” he admitted. “We need another plan and quick cuz that thing won’t be gone for long.”

“I’ll do it,” Dean volunteered, climbing off the back of Sam’s quad.

Sam’s head swung around quickly, his eyes going wide and harsh. “You’ll do what?”

Dean pushed his way past Angel and climbed into the saddle of the ATV and tested the ignition. The machine flared back to life and Dean nodded in approval.

“What the Hell do you think you’re doing, Dean?”

“I’m gonna need this,” Dean answered, tugging forcefully at the sleeve of his little brother’s overshirt. “I lost mine somewhere back that direction.”

“Whatever you’re thinking,” Sam argued, removing his shirt, “it’s a bad idea.” He handed the shirt over anyway and complained when Dean tore one of the sleeves off.

“Here. You better hold on to the rest. You never know, we might need it.”

Ronnie stepped between the brothers, his arms crossed over his narrow chest, and “Stop sidestepping his questions and tell us the plan,” the boy demanded. “Cuz I want in.”

“No. You’re gonna get in that Jeep, you and Cheech over here,” Dean thumbed over his shoulder at Angel who scowled in return, “and you’re gonna hightail it the Hell out of here.”

“I can help.”

“Yes you can, but not here. What I got in mind isn’t gonna kill this sonuvabitch, it’s only gonna scare it away and give us some time to regroup. So…regroup.” He unscrewed the lock-cap on the ATV’s gas tank and began feeding Sam’s sleeve down through the opening.

“You’re crazy,” Ronnie shook his head in dismay.

Dean smirked. “So I’ve been told. Now go. Where’s the nearest place?”

“Town is closest,” Angel answered, moving quickly away from the deathtrap Dean was creating.

Sam shook his head. “No, don’t go there. Head to Massina’s. We don’t wanna draw this thing towards town. Too many innocent people.”

Angel nodded in agreement. He climbed into the Jeep and set to giving Blake directions.

“You too,” Dean said, giving Ronnie a push towards the truck.

“Fine,” the boy answered, stepping up on the running board, “but if you get killed—”

“Kid, I’m too pretty to die.” He turned his eyes on Blake and said, “You give us a five second head start and then you gun it towards the Massina farm, capisce?” Blake nodded.

“You sure you know what you’re doing?” Sam asked, leaning into Dean’s side.

Dean shrugged nonchalantly, his mouth turning down. “Probably not.” He reached into his jeans pocket and fished out a plain silver zippo, testing the flint. “So much for shore leave, huh Sammy?”

“Yeah,” Sam chuckled, and then turned serious. “Let’s go hunt this bitch.”

Dean’s face lit up in a bright smile. “Now you’re speaking my language.”

He finished his preparations quickly, removing his belt and looping it around the throttle, while Sam kept a steady lookout for the Worm. “Anything?” Dean asked without looking up from his work.

“No. Not yet—wait. Yes. There,” Sam pointed off towards the hills. Dean shielded his eyes from the sun and looked. There in the pale shadows of the mountains, a cloud of orange dust rose and fell in a slow, wide circle like a saucer teetering precariously on a pole. “What is it…pacing?” Sam guessed.

“Waiting. And none too patiently, by the looks of it.” Dean grinned, his cheeks rounding out his face until he looked like an eager fourteen-year-old. “Wanna go give it Hell?”

Sam wrinkled his nose and tucked his chin, hiding his smile. He didn’t like to openly admit that he enjoyed hunting with his brother from time to time, but something new and unusual like this brought his inner geek to the surface fast and his blood was pumping with enthusiasm to get started. He turned the ignition key and the quad leapt to life, equally excited for the hunt. “Thought you’d never ask.”

“Five seconds, okay?” Dean directed at Blake. The man nodded and put his Jeep into gear and began counting as soon as the Winchesters pulled away.

“It’s on the move,” Sam shouted across to Dean, and sure enough the cloud of dust had stopped its rotation and was moving quickly at the brothers. The Worm chewed through the earth, dirt and rock flying up in its wake. “You know, you’re only gonna get one chance at this,” he warned.

“One chance is all I need, little brother.” Dean pulled the belt tight around the throttle lever and tested its security.

“Eighty feet!”

“Steering is squirrelly. Gonna have t’stay with it. Can’t lose our opportunity.” He pulled the lighter out of his front shirt pocket and thumbed over the flint wheel. The Zippo sparked but didn’t light.

“Forty feet, Dean. Do it now!”

“I know,” Dean growled, striking the flint again and again.

“Dean!”

“Son. Of. A – Got it!” He touched the flame to the ragged end of Sam’s shirt sleeve, making sure the gas-soaked material caught, and then he dove from the vehicle, rolling across the sand.

Sam pulled up beside him, reaching out for Dean’s hand and pulling his brother up and onto the quad behind him. Together they watched the second vehicle veer to the left. “It’s not gonna go for it.”

“It’ll go,” Dean assured confidently. “It’ll go.”

The Worm veered right and zeroed in on the moving target, rising to the surface, its jaws open wide, diving in for the kill just as the ATV ignited in a ball of flames.

“Ye-ah!!!” Dean shouted, pumping his first. He wrapped an arm around his brother and patted Sam’s chest enthusiastically. “Hell yeah! Come on, Let’s go catch up with the others.”


	7. Chapter Six

Sam poked around Carl Massina’s farmhouse until he found what he was looking for; Carl’s office. It was small, square and crowded, with an L-shaped cedar desk, a bookshelf, a filing cabinet and a shredder taking up almost all the available space. The desk was so overloaded with papers, manila folders, books, miscellaneous stationery and coffee mugs that there was barely any visible surface, and what little surface Sam could see was a fuzz of thick, grey dust.  There was also a clunky 14 inch computer monitor sitting on the desk, and when Sam sat down on the wheeled office chair he could see that the desk had a pull out tray which housed a keyboard. On the floor next to the skirt of the desk was a PC tower and—hallelujah—sitting on top of that was a modem. Sam grinned and fired up the beast, linking his hands together and cracking his knuckles in anticipation of getting stuck into some hardcore research.

Six minutes later, he was still waiting for the damn clunker to finish booting up. Sam glared at it, and then, working on the theory that, much like a watched pot, a watched PC never boots, he wandered back toward the large farmhouse kitchen.

Ronnie was making coffee with a face like chalk, Dean was straddling a kitchen chair backwards and talking animatedly with Angel about minhocão and what, if anything, they had in common with fictional giant worms, and Blake was watching the two of them with a raised brow and a slack mouth, as if he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe what he was hearing. Noah was nowhere to be seen.

“Sammy!” Dean’s face brightened when he saw Sam standing in the kitchen doorway. “You’re a geek,” Blake made a small noise and glanced at Sam in disbelief. “Do you think our Worms are more like graboids or more like the giant sandworms from Dune?”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “I’m a geek? And yet you know both of those sci fi references.”

Dean waved a hand dismissively. “Okay one? Kevin Bacon. He always gets a pass. And two? Hot, naked chicks with blue-on-blue eyes,” he waggled his eyebrows and grinned broadly.  “So what d’ya think? Graboids or Sandworms?”

Sam sighed. “I don’t know, Dean. Does it really matter?” He turned to Blake. “Where’s Noah?”

Blake nodded toward the verandah where Sam could see Noah pacing back and forth while talking on a cordless phone.

“He’s talking to one of the staff in the Cultural Department.”

Sam turned back to Dean who was looking pensive. “You reckon we’ll get to blow stuff up?” Dean asked. “Does anyone have any dynamite? Or a cannon?”

The sound of shattering ceramic rang throughout the house and they all turned to Ronnie, standing frozen in the kitchen.

“Listen to yourselves!” he said, his voice tight and high pitched. “This is not a movie! It’s not a game! People have died. Virgil…Virgil got eaten! And Luke got hurt. And Brian is missing—”

“Dead,” Dean interjected.

He somehow managed to miss Sam’s fervent ‘shut up’ gestures and carried on obliviously. “Luke saw him get eaten.”

Angel’s chair clattered to the floor and his fist was through the plaster in the kitchen wall before Sam could get to him.

“Dammit, Dean,” Sam hissed at his brother, pulling the distraught nineteen-year-old into a hug, despite the fact that he was trying to fight him off, “Brian’s his brother!”

Dean’s face fell and his eyes hardened, all signs of the cocky joker he’d been just a few moments earlier completely gone.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t know. And I’m sorry for your loss. But I promise you,” his eyes glinted. “We _will_ get these sons-of-bitches and we’ll put them down hard.”

“Doesn’t help Brian none, does it?” Angel snapped.

 “I know,” Dean’s voice was hard and his jaw was set, but his eyes were full of compassion and understanding. “But it’s what we’ve got left.”

Sam felt Angel slacken under his grip as the 19-year-old searched Dean’s eyes for any trace of insincerity and, upon finding none, drew himself to his full height and nodded his head. Sam was impressed at the kid’s resolve.

Dean, never one to linger long in emotionally-charged situations, nodded once and then rubbed his hands together “Alright. First things first; where does Massina keep his good whiskey?”

Sam slipped quietly back into the office to see if the computer had managed to boot up yet.

Ten minutes later he was just about pulling his hair out in frustration waiting for the modem to successfully dial up. The clatter of the screen door and the stomp of boots, accompanied by Carl’s holler, announced the arrival of Carl, Dodger, Cahill and the injured boy, Luke. Dean immediately took charge of the patient, dosing him up with painkillers and then ushering the kid into his bedroom to lie down. Sam ventured into the kitchen to let Carl know that he was using his office for research. Carl merely nodded, then patted him on the shoulder and took off after Dean and Luke. Dodger had corralled Angel and the two of them were talking quietly together and the Hualapai were nowhere in sight, so Sam went back to the office, finally managing to get the Hunters’ Blog up and running and his log-in accepted.

There were a number of worm-like cyptids known to hunters, Sam discovered.  The most dangerous-sounding of these was the _olgoi-khorkhoi_ , or Mongolian Death Worm. A thick, bright red worm, it was only five feet long, but could kill at a distance using an electric charge, and could also spit out a deadly corrosive acid. They were hard to kill by all accounts and Sam was thankful that they had so far only been found in and around the Gobi Desert.  The next worm that was discussed on the Hunters’ Blog was the _e-kwa tshko-ya_ , a giant inchworm that featured in Cherokee legends and was said to take the women of the tribe and eat them. The lore said that the warriors of the tribe dealt with the worm by digging a trap, then luring the worm into it and burning it to death. There was a note on the blog from Caleb saying that he’d faced a pair of _e-kwa tshko-ya_ in Oklahoma and the Cherokee method of dealing with them was right on the money. Sam bookmarked the entry.

The third and final worm that was detailed on the site was the minhocão, the South American worm that Angel had told them about.  The minhocão was described as a giant subterranean worm-like cryptid that lived underground in South American forests. Enormous limbless beings, they had scaly black skin, a readily visible mouth and a couple of tentacle-like appendages protruding from their heads. They had a body diameter of up to ten feet and a body length which varied from 75 up to 150 feet. They were reported to prey on large animals, including cattle, and to leave enormous tunnels in their wake. Apparently minhocão tunnels most commonly appeared after periods of continuous rain, indicating that the minhocão was more active during such periods, and might even keep themselves hidden during dry days.

Sam frowned. The physical description of the minhocão matched the creature that had been attacking Dean and Ronnie, but that thing about rain? It was desert country out here; as dry as a bone. According to the lore, the minhocão should be inactive and keeping itself hidden in this climate.    

“Knock, knock.”

Sam turned to find Noah standing in the doorway.

“Hey,” Sam minimized the screen. “You get anything good from your Cultural people?”

Noah made a so/so gesture. “You mind if I…?” he gestured at the desk and waited for Sam’s response before going and perching himself on the L side of the desk.

“I spoke to Marietta, one of our cultural anthropologists. She’s been working on a project, collecting oral histories and transcribing them into a database. She’s also part Cherokee. Apparently, the Cherokee have a legend of the _e-kwa tshko-ya—”_

“I know it,” Sam said. “I just finished reading about it. I don’t think that’s what we’re dealing with here.”

Noah nodded. “No. We’re dealing with a hybrid.”

Sam’s eyebrows shot up. “A hybrid?”

“Marietta took down a…well…I would’ve said it was a legend until today, but maybe it’s more of a historical fact.  One of our elders, Hilda Quasula, recounted an incident that her grandmother had told her about. Apparently, when the grandmother was a girl, there were some cattle disappearances and then two women disappeared on their way home from town. Our people held a council and then went out to hunt whatever was responsible for the disappearances. The popular theory was a pack of coyotes. Anyway, it turned out to be a giant worm, with some features in common with the Cherokee worm and some in common with a South American worm known as a—”

“Minhocão ,” said Sam. “Yeah.”

 Noah nodded. “The _e-kwa tshko-ya_ is native to Oklahoma, but the larvae form, which can stay dormant underground for a very long time, is quite small. It gets around, in produce and so forth. And apparently some idiot miner around the turn of the last century thought he could harness a minhocão to dig his mine shaft for him, brought a baby one out from Brazil. You can guess how that worked out. So anyway, Baby Minhocão meets Baby _E-kwa tshko-ya._ End result? We ended up with our own unique species of man-eating worm.”“Did Hilda know how they ganked it?”

“How they what?”

“Ganked. Killed.”

Noah nodded. “They took a leaf out of the Cherokee’s book. Dug a pit and burned them.”

“Them?”

“There were two. A mated pair.”

~~~

When Sam and Noah rejoined the others in the kitchen, Cahill was updating everyone on the conversation he’d just had with Lyn, back at the search base in Chloride.

“We’ve agreed to hold off on calling the Kingman Police Department for now,” his eyes flashed briefly to the Hualapai and to Sam and Dean, as if expecting them to argue in favor of going straight to the police.

“That’s a good move,” Dean said. “The cops ain’t gonna believe us if we try to tell ‘em what we’re dealin’ with. Not until they see the critters in action and if that happens, we’re probably gonna increase the body count. And I think we can all agree that that would be a bad thing.”

Cahill made eye contact with Dodger, then Carl, and then straightened in his chair. “You’re awful calm about this,” he said. “You and your brother.”

“Yeah, well,” Dean swilled his whiskey around in his glass, “ain’t exactly our first rodeo.”

Another significant look passed between the three Chloride men.

“What Dean means,” Sam said, “is that we’ve dealt with…unusual…creatures before,” he pulled up a chair next to Cahill and sat down. “It’s kind of what we do.”

“Right,” Dean tossed back the last of his whiskey and reached for the bottle. “Saving people, hunting things. The family business.”

 There was a moment’s silence and then Cahill said, “You’re Hunters, then.”

Dean froze. “What do you know about Hunters?”

Dodger sniffed. “We had a Thunderbird problem a few years back. Guy by the name of Reggie stopped by to help us out. Strange fella. Used to pour salt in doorways and on window sills, but he knew how to deal with Thunderbirds.”

Dean pushed the whiskey bottle away and sat back in his chair. “We know a Reggie,” he acknowledged. “Our Dad knows him better.” He turned to Sam. “How did the research go?  Do you know what we’re dealing with?”

Sam filled everyone in on his worm research and then handed over to Noah to talk about the Hualapai and Cherokee legends.

After they’d finished there was a lengthy silence.

“So how come we haven’t seen these…these…hybrid Worms before now?” Angel demanded. “I mean, they’re kinda hard to miss.”

Noah shrugged. “My theory? The larvae have been lying dormant out in the dessert for the last century and when the tailings pond out at the mine leaked, the area got wet enough to wake ‘em up and get ‘em going.”

“Hybrids, huh?” Dean said after a while. “So what do we call ‘em? Cuz graboids is kinda lame and trying to combine the two parent species’ names is just…well it’s not really gonna roll off the tongue, is it? So what do we call ‘em?”

Sam and Noah exchanged a pained look and Blake huffed out a laugh.  “I highly doubt there’s an [International Code of Cryptozoological Nomenclature](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature), so why don’t you just go ahead, Dean, and pick a name?”

Dean’s delighted grin had Sam rolling his eyes. He watched as his brother tilted his head to one side and pursed his lips.  “Limp Bizkits,” he said, with a nod, “because they’re a mix of two different things watered down, they keep coming back, and everyone hates them.”

Angel sniggered.

“Well, now that we’ve got the important things sorted out,” Cahill said dryly, “Maybe we can sort out how to kill them?”

Sam cleared his throat. “About that,” he said, “Carl wouldn’t happen to have a back hoe, would he?”

~~~

Dean raised the binoculars and peered through them at the half-a-football-field sized mess of muddy sand, tunnels and holes. He lowered the glasses with a sigh and turned to Blake.

“So you and Noah collected water samples from here and then followed one of the tunnels?”

Blake nodded. “There are a lot more tunnels now than when we were here earlier. I guess the…the…”

“Limp Bizkits,” Dean supplied helpfully.

Blake glared. “… _Worms_ have been a lot more active in the last few hours.”

Dean figured they were probably on a protein high, thanks to all the cow and Search Team they’d eaten. And they were probably starting to grasp the idea that they were pretty high on the food chain around here too. But he kept those thoughts to himself because he didn’t want the natives getting restless. Natives. Ha! His eyes slid across to Blake who was staring at the muddy slush with a serious Sam-like expression on his face. Dean sighed. He’d already had to put up with one whispered lecture on ‘cultural sensitivity’ from Sam when the group had decided that Dean and the Hualapai Biosystems Engineer would scope out the suspected Limp Bizkit nesting site.  Sam’d had reservations…Dean bit back a snort… Reservations? Get it? Because Indians… So anyway, Sam had been worried that Dean would spark some kind of Indian War if he was left alone with Blake for five minutes. Although apparently Blake threw a bitchfit of epic proportions if you called him an Indian, so it probably wouldn’t be an _Indian_ war per se. Dean grinned to himself. Alrighty. Cultural sensitivity, coming right up. He could do that.   

“Should we try to get closer?” Blake asked.

“Well that depends. You got a giant pit of fire in that back pack?”

Blake produced a bitchface that would’ve done Sam proud and didn’t deign to answer.

“In that case, I recommend _not_ poking around in the nest of the giant, man-eating, near-impossible to kill Worms.  We’re just here to observe from a safe distance.”  

~~~

When Sam was thirteen, the Winchesters had spent a summer at an abandoned property outside of Lewistown, Montana and their dad had taught them how to make explosives from common household ingredients. Dean had been beside himself, Sam recalled with a grin, as excited as a fourteen-year-old girl with a back-stage pass at a Backstreet Boys concert. They’d purpose-built a dozen roughly-hewn sheds, just to blow up, and for Dean, the fun had been in watching them burst and shatter, splinters of wood raining down amid clouds of smoke and belching fire. For Sam, the fun had been in finding the necessary ingredients among the various common household bleaches, cleaning fluids, fertilizers and so forth and then constructing an explosive that worked. For him, the explosion was satisfying because it meant his science had worked. Dean just liked to watch things go boom.

As it happened, Noah liked to watch things go boom too. When Sam had asked him if he had any experience with homemade explosives, he’d grinned sheepishly. “Our senior year of High School my cousin and I blew up the sports shed where the hockey team kept their gear.”

“Holy shit,” said Sam. “Did you get expelled?”

 Noah shook his head. “The school couldn’t prove who did it,” a rueful smile crossed his face. “Unfortunately for us, our fathers decided they didn’t need the same high standard of proof. Suffice to say we never did anything like that again, but we knew that we _could_ if we wanted to. And so did the jocks.”

Sam shook his head clear of the earlier conversation as Noah shouldered his way into the shed.

“I’ve got drain cleaner and bleach,” Noah hefted a couple of gallon-sized bottles up onto the bench. “What did you find?”

“I found the mother lode— a 130 gallon tank of Diesel that Carl keeps for his tractor. I also found fertilizer. Half a dozen bags.”

Noah grinned. “Awesome! What are we using for detonators?”

“Diesel soaked rags? Molotov Cocktail style?”

Noah nodded. “We’ll need bottles then.”

Cahill looked up from where he was busy making a flame thrower out of a butane torch, a high pressure hose, and a fire extinguisher. “Carl’s got a glass and plastics recycling box out behind the house. You’ll find plenty of bottles there.”

The Worm Ganking Plan was reasonably straight-forward: lure the Worms into a large pit, filled with wooden spikes and gasoline, and then set fire to them. The tricky part would be digging the pit without attracting the attention of the Worms. In order to hold them back if they did come to investigate, Noah had suggested hand held explosives and a flamethrower. Dean was going to be ecstatic.

“You think we should try to take Luke into town?” Cahill asked when Noah had gone to get them some bottles. “Get him in to see the Doc?”

“I could take him,” Ronnie piped up, from where he was carving wooden stakes, along with Angel and Dodger.  

Sam shook his head. “Look how they went after Virgil’s Jeep and our ATVs. It’s too risky. Better to stay here until we’ve taken the Worms out.”

“You think we can do it?” Ronnie asked. His eyes were nervy and his hands shook as he drew the knife up and down the wood.

“I do,” Sam said. “My brother and I, we grew up killing monsters. We know what we’re doing.”

Ronnie nodded and chewed on his bottom lip. “Okay,” he said. “I trust you guys.”

Sam was relieved that Noah returned just then, pushing a wheelie bin that rattled with the tell-tale clink of glass on glass.  Sam was confident that they could gank the Worms. He just couldn’t guarantee that none of the civilians would get hurt in the process.

~~~

Blake had the binoculars and Dean was watching his back when the tremor hit.

Blake gasped and would’ve dropped the binoculars, if not for the cord keeping them around his neck. Dean spun just in time to see two Limp Bizkits break clear of the mud, their long, segmented bodies lifting clear into the air, undulating grotesquely as they opened their maws and shrieked.

“Fuck,” said Dean.

The Limp Bizkits fell to the ground, writhing and twisting around each other. Blake lifted the binoculars once more. “Oh,” he said. “Not good.”

“Are they fighting?” Dean asked. “Maybe they’re fighting for dominance. That’s good for us, right? If one takes the other out, there’s one less Worm for us to deal with.”

“They’re not fighting. They’re…well, you were on the money with that word you said before.”

Dean frowned and then gaped. “Really? They’re…”

“Copulating,” said Blake. “Yes.”

Dean reached for the binoculars, snatching them from around Blake’s neck. “Give me those,” he brought them up to his eyes. “Wow,” he watched the Worms twist around each other, surging together, rippling and heaving, and smacking each other to the ground. “I’ve known some feisty women in my time, but that…that can’t be comfortable.” He lowered the binoculars and looked at Blake. “Which one’s the chick anyway?”

Blake looked embarrassed and uncomfortable. “Well they’re worms, so I imagine they’re hermaphrodites.”

Dean’s eyes widened and then he grinned. “Riiiiight,” he said. “Dick _and_ tits. Nice. Although,” he brought the binoculars up again, “they don’t exactly seem, uh, properly equipped.”

“Oh my God,” Blake muttered. “Maybe you should try watching Discovery once in a while instead of pay-per-view?”

“I watch Discovery,” Dean protested. “Shark Week is awesome.”

 Blake raised his eyebrows. “What they’re doing now is exchanging sperm. Once they’ve done that they’ll separate, then secrete…I guess it’s like an egg sack…and then they’ll inject their own…” Blake trailed off as he caught sight of Dean’s glazed expression.  “You know what?” he said, “All you really need to know is that the Worms are doing the nasty. And Giant Killer Worms making more Giant Killer Worms equals bad freaking news for us.” 

Dean nodded thoughtfully. “Awesome. So we’re gonna have to gank Mom and Dad and a bunch of babies,” He frowned and then grinned, his face lighting up with impish delight. “The Worm family should definitely be on the Jerry Springer Show. They’d be like, well we’re brothers but his Mom is my Dad, and my Dad is his Mom.”

Blake stared at him.

Dean cleared his throat. “Anyway, looks like we’re gonna have to gank the parents and clean the nest out too,” His face lit up again. “Here’s one way that this is good. The Limp Bizkits are a little busy right now. So let’s get back to the farm and tell the others to step on the gas and get the pit dug asap. If we’re lucky, the Worms’ll be too distracted to notice.” 

~~~

Carl Massina’s shed stank; a really pungent aroma of cat pee and gasoline.

Which meant Sammy was making explosives.

“Nice going guys,” Dean nodded at Noah. “How many you got?”

Between them, Sam and Noah had made eighteen Molotov Cocktail-style IEDs out of ammonium nitrate and Diesel.

“Well you need to get a hustle on,” Dean explained about the Worms. “We gotta get that pit dug while they’re busy with their Hentai play date.” He grinned brightly in the face of Sam’s bitchface.

Twenty minutes later Sam, Dean, Noah, Blake, Dodger and Angel were each armed with a gun, a knife and three IEDs. Cahill had a gun, a knife and a flamethrower that could spit fire twenty feet away and Carl was driving the back hoe. Ronnie, much to his chagrin, had been left behind to keep an eye on Luke. At least that’s how Dean had sold it to him, anyway. In reality he’d been left behind because Dean wanted the kid kept out of harm’s way. Granted, he and Angel were the same age, but Angel’s brother had been eaten; he had every right to help hunt down the sons-of-bitches responsible and Dean wasn’t going to deny him his vengeance. Ronnie had a widowed mom and younger siblings relying on him; Dean wasn’t about to let him become worm food; not on his watch.

The group had selected a flat area approximately half way between the Massina farm and the Limp Bizkit nesting site as their battleground. While Dean and the others formed a protective circle around Carl, the man himself set to getting a twenty-foot by twenty-foot pit dug out.  

The late afternoon sun beat against their backs and Dean’s forehead and neck were soon beaded with sweat; his tee-shirt damp. The back hoe was sending up clouds of gritty orange dust and they were all soon caked in it. Cahill and Dodger had quickly pulled their bandanas up from around their necks and placed them over their noses and mouths.  The rest of the team soon followed suit, pulling the necks of their tee-shirts up to save them from breathing in the dust.

By the time the pit was dug, the heat of the day was giving way to the relative cool of dusk. Sam and Angel made quick work of lining the pit with several big tarpaulins, and then filled it with stakes, all carved with points at each end.  Once Sam and Angel had climbed out of the pit, Dean and Dodger poured in the Diesel. The pungent scent of it overwhelmed the smell of sweat and dirt and the fumes hit Dean hard, making his blood sing with euphoria. Or maybe that was just pre-battle adrenalin.

The desert twilight was still and quiet. Not a man moved, not a man spoke.

Eventually, Angel cleared his throat, his feet shuffling restlessly. “So now what?” he said.

“Now?” said Dean. “Now we summon a Worm.”    


	8. Chapter Seven

Dean opened the back gate of Blake’s Jeep and pulled out several steel fence posts, handing them off to his brother.

Sam accepted them with a frown. “What’s all this?” he asked as Dean pulled another piece of steel from the truck. It was tubular and painted in red enamel with long square handles that spanned two thirds the length of the base.

“I found these in Massina’s shed. They’re post drivers. See?” He took a post from Sam’s hands and stuck one end into the dirt at their feet, and then he fitted the steel tube down over the top of the post. He took hold of the handles and raised the driver up, and then brought it down hard; a loud metal on metal twang, ringing out over the desert like an off-key church bell. “Figure they’ll work good as Thumpers. Just like in Dune, Sammy,” Dean grinned.

Sam opened and closed his mouth as though he were about to argue the point and thought better of it. He twitched his nose and shook his head. “And you call _me_ a geek.”

Dean ignored the comment, pulling a second post driver out of the Jeep. “I found three of them.”

The men paired off; Carl and Dodger, Dean and Cahill, and Sam and Blake; and they took their positions, spaced out along the south end of the pit that faced out into the desert where the Worms had last been seen. Angel took up lookout from the roof of Massina’s backhoe, while Noah sat in its driver’s seat waiting to do his part. The plan was simple enough: Use the post drivers–come-thumpers to draw the Limp Bizkits into the pit where they would be skewered by the hand-carved spears, and then Noah would light the Diesel. The pit would burn fast, but it would burn hot, insuring complete incineration. Best not take any chances.

“You see anything yet?” Dean hollered up at Angel, who stood atop the backhoe, scanning the quickly darkening horizon for ‘Wormsign’.

“Nothing,” Angel called back. “¡Maldita sea!” he cursed in frustration and let the binoculars fall heavily against his chest. “It’s like they just disappeared. Where could they be?”

Sam shook his head, his brow cinching up tightly in concern and he turned to his brother. “I don’t like this, Dean. Even in the middle of their…”

“Worm sex,” Dean filled in when Sam stalled out.

“Yes, that. Even then, they would have been aware of our activity. They’d have felt us and would have come looking for us. They should’ve been here by now.”

“Well then,” Cahill said, stepping into the conversation, “let’s quit wasting time and call these damn things. The quicker we get them here and make them dead, the quicker we can all go home, cuz I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m not looking forward to facing these Limp-whatsits in the dark.”

“Man’s got a point,” Dean agreed. He grabbed up the post driver and positioned it over the steel fence post. “On the count of three?”

The six men on the ground took their places; Dodger, Cahill and Blake each holding a fence post steady, while Carl, Dean and Sam raised their post drivers. Just as they were ready to strike, the radio at Carl’s hip squawked. They all turned as one to look down the line at the rancher as he fumbled for the walkie.

“Luke? Is that you?” he asked into the mike.

The reception was scattered, and the message he received back was staticky, but filled with obvious panic. _“…here! Came after…ows, Come up under… and Ronnie…”_

“Ronnie?” Dean tossed his post driver to the ground and went to Carl’s side. “What about Ronnie?”

Carl shushed him and diverted his attention back to the radio. “Son, you’re breaking up. Come again?”

“ _He ran out there, Dad_ ,” came the clear reply, “ _to lure it away. To protect me_.”

Suddenly a faint echo reached out across the sands to them—the telling crack of a weapons discharge that had Dean surging out of the group, running, only to be caught by Sam’s long reach.

“Le’go. I’ve gotta go back,” Dean insisted, pulling hard against his brother’s hold. 

Sam tightened his grip around Dean’s bicep and held him in place. “No, Dean. You can’t.”

“I have to. It’s my fault that they’re back there alone. All that kid wanted was to help. Offered to take Luke in to the Doc, but I wouldn’t let him. I made them sit tight. Thought they’d be safe there, but you heard Luke. They’re in real trouble and _that’s_ on me.”

“Yeah, I heard Luke. And I can hear Ronnie too.” Sam threw a hand out in the direction of Massina’s farm, the crackling of gunfire still audible over the darkening landscape. “But Dean, you are _never_ gonna make it back there in time to do that boy any good.” 

“He’s got a family that depends on him, Sammy. Little sisters and a _mom_ , and I promised I would get him home to them. I can’t just—”

“Yes, you can.” Sam tugged him away from the group, away from the terrified cries emanating from the radio, away from the anxious looks of the others. “Dean, you gotta pull it together, man. I mean, I get it. I really do. I mean, you’re looking out for the kid because he’s somebody’s big brother, and I understand. I’d be the same way. But our only chance of helping both him _and_ Luke right now is to draw the attention away from them.”

“ _Omigod!_ ” Luke’s terror-filled voice broke through again, loud and clear. “ _Omigod! I can’t see Ronnie anymore! I can’t see him! The worm…it…_ ” the radio broke up again, emitting nothing for a moment but static.

“It what?” Dean roared. “What?”

_“…think it ate him! Omigod! I think it…”_

Dean put his hands to his head, and looked at Sam, his eyes filled with desperation.

“Get back in the house, son,” Carl said calmly, “and find somewhere to hide. You hear me?”

Dean spun in a slow circle and stood facing the direction the last gunshots had come from.

Sam squared him by the shoulders and forced Dean to face him. “I can’t do this without you, man. Please.”

Dean eyes fell and he took a deep breath through his nose, letting it out slowly and clenching his jaw. There was nothing he disliked more than having his own words used against him. Nothing, maybe, except giant man-eating worms. And witches. Dean hated witches.

Every fiber of his being screamed at Dean to get out there and hunt down the monster that had…that had…goddamn it! He’d let Ronnie down. Sam was right though. The best thing he could do now was make that monster come to him. And then he would rip its goddamn lungs out. Did worms even have lungs? Begrudgingly, Dean went back to his fence post and picked up the driver. The rest of the men joined him at their positions and together they brought the drivers down. The resulting sound rang out across the desert floor, loud and clear like a cast bronze bell, and reverberated down deep into the ground below their feet. Over and over, in a practiced rhythm, they brought the drivers down, pausing only a moment to switch off to the next post at which point Dodger, Cahill and Blake took over.

They had three posts each into the ground before Angel raised the alarm.

“I see it,” he cried, his hands cupped around his mouth to amplify his voice over the metal on metal racket.  “There!”

He pointed off to the west where the sun had just set and the faint wisps of lavender clouds sat low in the sky, scattering and refracting the remaining sun-glow across the desert floor. Below the sky and tracking slowly across the painted earth, an ominous dust cloud billowed up out of the ground like a whirlwind death omen.

“That’s only one,” Cahill answered. “Where’s the other?”

The Winchesters weren’t superstitious or anything. They’d seen too much over their combined fifty years that could and did discredit certain superstitions, like knocking on wood for example, but there was something to be said for ‘tempting fate’. You just didn’t do it. And as soon as the words were out of Cahill’s mouth, Sam and Dean heaved exasperated sighs and rolled their eyes at the sky before glancing at each other. A second later their world erupted into chaos.

The second, unseen Worm exploded up and out of the rocky soil sending dirt and rock and bodies flying in its wake. Sam tumbled end over end, rolling up to his feet as gracefully as if the fall had been his intention all along. He moved quickly, scooping a hand under Blake’s arm and hauling the man quickly to his feet. “Around to the other side,” he ordered, grabbing up a fence post driver as they ran.

Dean too was up and running; diving protectively in front of Carl and igniting the flame thrower. It sputtered twice and then roared to life, sending a cascade of liquid fire raining down on the beast. “That’s what you get for ruining a classic like ‘Faith’, you bitch!”

The Limp Bizkit bellowed. It rose up out of the ground and thrashed in pain; its inflamed thick-muscled body, looming dangerously over all of them. And then, as if the action would extinguish the heat, the monster threw itself head first into the ground, its armored head protecting against the blow.

The ground shook with the force of it, knocking all of the men off of their feet. Dean scrambled away; pushing Carl up and out of sand as it fell away, sinking beneath the movement of the giant Worm. Cahill too was climbing on hands and knees, digging in to pull himself to freedom, and snatching up as many of their weapons as were within his reach.

Noah and Angel felt helpless, watching from the backhoe as each member of the group—save Sam and Blake, who were already safe—struggled to get clear of the collapsing Worm hole and move to higher, safer ground. They all succeeded; all but Dodger.

“Climb!” Noah encouraged, and above him, Angel shouted, “Dammit Dodge! Move your ass!”

Dodger worked, grasping hand over hand of loose sand and rock, but for every foot he gained up the widening sink hole, he lost two. The Worm thrashed again as it fled the area, loosening even more soil, and Dodger slipped over the edge.

“Dodge!” Angel jumped from the cab roof into the upturned bucket of the backhoe, and then onto the ground, rolling into a full-on sprint. He raced to the place where he’d last seen the man and threw himself onto the ground. “Dodge?”

He looked over the edge of the hole into the pale face of his friend and released a shaky breath. “You okay?”

“No, I’m not okay. Get me out of here…please.”

“I will, Dodge,” Angel assured, quickly assessing the situation. “I promise.”

Dodger was dangling above the ten foot deep hole, whispering prayers of salvation and clinging tight to the newly exposed roots of a Joshua tree. Below him, there was no secure place for him to plant his feet; only open space and the risk of the Limp Bizkit returning though the same tunnel. Angel moved quickly, reaching over the rim to grab hold of the other man. “I need your hand, Dodge. Give me your hand.”

Dodge tried, his arms shaking beneath the strain of his own weight, but he didn’t dare let go, for fear of falling. Because if he fell, and that Worm did come back, it would roll over him and that’d be the end of that. He shook his head and clung tighter to the roots.

“Dodger,” Angel coaxed, his voice steady and sure, “look at me. Look at my hand. If you let go, I am _going_ to catch you. I won’t let you down. Never again.”

Dodger swallowed hard and nodded. He didn’t waste time, just let go of the roots and thrust his hand up into Angel’s awaiting grasp. They moved immediately; Angel wrapping both hands around Dodger’s wrist. He pulled, digging the heels of his boots into the ground and leaning back, using gravity and his own weight to leverage the older man towards the surface.

Dodger scrambled up, finally finding a foothold in the root system of the tree and with one last yank, he was out of the hole and they were sprawled out across the sand, chests heaving from exertion.

On the other side of the opened-up tunnel, Dean, Cahill and Carl stood in various stages of relief and disbelief. Carl clapped a hand to his forehead and chuckled anxiously. “You two alright?” he asked.

Dodger flopped over onto his back and stared up into the star-lit heavens until an Angel-shaped shadow fell over him. The boy leaned over and offered him his hand, grinning. “Lemme give you a hand up, old man.”

He pulled Dodger to his feet and swamped the man in a hug. Dodger’s first reaction was to gasp in disbelief, but then he relaxed and pulled the kid into his arms, returning the hug and patting the kid on the back affectionately. “I owe you one, boy,” he said, his voice muffled into Angel’s shoulder.

“Are we done with the hearts and flowers yet?” Cahill asked, clearing his throat uncomfortably. “We’ve still got two of these sonsuvbitches to kill.”

“Noah, you got eyes on them?” Dean asked of the man in the backhoe.

“Sure do.” Sometime during Angel’s heroic endeavor to save Dodger, Noah had moved to take up position on top of the machine and keep a watchful eye on the situation. “We’ve got Fred at our 8 o’clock, about 100 yards out.”

“Fred?” Cahill asked, shouldering a rifle and sighting the scope. “Are we giving them names now?”

But Dean wagged his finger knowingly at Noah. “And where’s Wes Borland?”

“Still circling at a safe distance. I’m not sure why it’s holding back, but it doesn’t seem to have moved.”

“Does it really matter?” Dean shrugged. “I’d rather not have to deal with two of those sonsuvbitches at one time if I don’t have to. Sammy?”

“We’re ready, Dean.” On the far side of the pit, Sam and Blake had reset the thumpers and with a signal from Dean, they set to work, calling the Limp Bizkits.

“Alright,” Dean said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. “Showtime.” He turned to the others and spoke loud enough for Dodger, Angel and Noah to just hear him from where they stood across the collapsed tunnel. “Now, we don’t know how this thing is gonna react this time.  Last round, it caught us by surprise and–”

“But you hurt it,” Angel argued.

“Which only makes it more unpredictable. So, everybody spread out,” Dean barked; his hands directing the group through the hand signals his father had drilled into him since childhood. “Move quick, take what you can carry and get around to the back side of the pit. Once you’re in position, hunker down and don’t move. If it can’t feel our vibrations, then it can’t find us and it’ll go straight for those thumpers.”

While Sam and Blake continued to operate the thumper, everyone else hurried into position and then froze in place. Noah kept watch, the binoculars glued to his eyes, sweeping the horizon for the tell-tale signs that a Worm was approaching. Two minutes passed; five. Dean started counting, just for something to do. Finally, just when Dean was starting to worry, Noah made the signal. Sam and Blake stopped working the Thumper immediately and joined the others. Dean smiled at his brother, his eyes tight with pre-battle worry. Sam gave him a thumbs-up and an easy grin and the tension in Dean’s belly eased, just a bit. On the one hand, he hated knowing that Sam was in harm’s way; on the other, there was no-one else—not even his father—who Dean would rather have watching his back.

Noah gave the second signal and Dean barely had time to count to three before the Limp Bizkit exploding out of the ground and devoured the Thumper.     

Dean raised his arm high and then brought it down, signaling the charge. The waiting men surged forward, shooting at the Worm, driving it toward the pit.  When it tried to force its way past them Cahill blasted it with the flame thrower, in one sustained burst of fire, causing it to roar and slam its huge body into the ground, scattering its attackers.

“Dean!” Cahill called. “I’m just about outta fuel!”

Dean slung his rifle across his back and ran in close to the Limp Bizkit, a knife in each hand. He stabbed one of the knives in between two segments of the Worm’s back and when the Worm rolled he let it pull him up top. Running along the Worm’s back, Dean couldn’t help whooping in delight. Did he have the best job in the world, or what?

He felt, rather than heard, Sam come up behind him. He threw a grin over his shoulder. “How awesome is this, Sammy! I’ve always wanted to be a sandrider!”

Sam’s grin matched his own. “Cool though it is, do you actually have a plan here, or is this just for fun?”

Dean hefted his knife and nodded toward the waving antennae on the Worm’s head. “I’ll take the right one, you take the left one.”

The approached the head cautiously, stopping and exchanging a glance once they were in position. “On three?” Sam said.

“Okay.”

“One…two…”

“Wait, wait, wait! Do we do it on three? Or one, two, three, then do it?”

Sam rolled his eyes.  “It’s your ass Cochise.”

Dean sniggered. “Thank you, Riggs. We go on three.”

“On three? Okay. One, two…three!”

They severed the Limp Bizkit’s feelers simultaneously. Which may not have been the best thought-out plan in the world because the Limp Bizkit roared and reared up and sent the boys hurtling to the ground.

Dean had no idea what exactly the feelers did for the Worm, but without them it seemed directionless, rolling and bellowing and thrashing around. Which was a pretty good description for himself right now too. Dean rolled and rolled, bellowing for Sam and trying desperately to get clear of the thrashing Worm. The Limp Bizkit slammed down right next to his head, its putrid hot breath washing over him and making him want to hurl, and the impact making his ears ring.

“Dean!” he heard his name called as if through molasses. “Move your ass!” 

The Worm was rolling again and Dean barely scrambled out the way in time, wasn’t sure he was going to make it until Sam’s shovel of a hand was suddenly wrapped around his wrist, hauling him out of the way. They stumbled backwards, twisted, staggered, and then tumbled to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs, rolling over and over and finally coming to a stop with Dean on his back and Sam sprawled on top of him.

“Thanks little brother.”

Sam blew his bangs out of his eyes. “You’re welcome.”

Dean shifted uncomfortably. “Get off me, man. I don’t want anybody to see us like this!”

Sam clambered to his feet and reached down a hand to Dean, pulling him up.

“Fire in the hole!” Cahill shouted. And then he threw one of the IEDs straight at the Limp Bizkit. The explosion and resulting fire sent it into a frenzy of rolling and it hurled itself straight into the pit, impaling itself on the wooden spikes and bellowing in distress.

An answering bellow sounded in the distance and Noah shouted from his watch position on top of the Jeep. “Incoming! Wes Borland is moving in fast! I repeat: Wes Borland is moving in fast! We’re about to have company guys and from the way it’s moving, I’d say it’s pissed.”

The field of battle was a mess; gaping holes, massive mounds of displaced rock and soil, uprooted brush, one very sad looking Joshua tree, and seven men on the ground, clambering to get into position for the next attack.

It rode the desert like a sidewinder rattlesnake, pushing its entire body along the surface and tearing up the ground beneath it, leaving a trail that looked like curled ribbons in the sand. Sam stopped to watch its trek, awestruck by the power this one was displaying.

Dean came up behind him and tugged on his arm before moving into a better attack position. “Come on. You can geek out later, Sammy.”

“But Dean, do you know what kind of strength it has to have to be able to pull that off? I mean the sheer size of it alone…”

Dean shook his head and smirked, rolling his eyes in that fond way he had of dealing with his little brother. “Such a nerd.”

They ran and jumped over an embankment of rock and were joined right away by Blake who came bearing gifts in the form of two IEDs. “These are all I could find,” he said. “Carl and Cahill have one a piece and Dodger has one. The rest were lost during the first attack.”

Sam grimaced unhappily. All that time and energy they’d spent in their assembly had gone to waste if they didn’t have enough firepower to finish the job. “We’re just gonna have to make these last,” Dean said, placing a steadying hand on Sam’s shoulder as if he could read his younger brother’s thoughts.

“Closing fast,” Noah hollered out to them. “Fifty yards, now forty.”

“Alright,” Dodger growled from his and Angel’s place. “We don’t need a damn countdown. Just tell us when it’s here.”

“It’s here!” Angel yelled as the beast tore through the brush, directly in front of them. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

“Cuss later,” Dodger said, grabbing the boy’s arm. “Run now!”

The Limp Bizkit reared up, literally foaming at the mouth in rage and roared, showering them with spittle as they ran. And then it was slamming itself into the ground, driving its armored head into the soil and sending the two men flying in a hail storm of dirt and debris.

Dodger staggered to his feet, his brains rattled from the impact, and his right side barely able to hold his own weight. He looked around without focus until his eyes landed on Angel’s still form. Quickly, he limped to the boy’s side, setting his rifle aside and giving the kid a quick once over, cringing when he pulled his hand away from Angel’s hair, tacky with blood. There was a gash just inside Angel’s thick dark hairline, and Dodger ran his thumb over the boy’s forehead, wiping away the trickle that was snaking its way down toward his eyes.

The earth trembled beneath them and Dodger suddenly seemed to remember that he was in a war zone. He patted Angel's cheek with rough, dry hands, trying to rouse the young man.  "Wake up, kid. We've gotta get out of here."

There was a deep rumble below the ground; an angry warning a second before the Limp Bizkit breached the broken surface. It came up snarling and hissing directly over them, threatening to take the unconscious Angel down into the bowels of the earth with it. Moving in one fluid motion, Dodger rolled to his back and pulled his firearm up. “Don’t you touch ‘im!” He blasted three shots in rapid succession into the soft tissue of the Worm's mouth.

Screaming at the irritation, the beast thrashed and rolled, slipping over the rim of the pit. Gravity set in, pulling the Limp Bizkit into the death trap, but the Worm refused to give up. It surged up, attempting to use the injured form of its mate to boost itself out of the pit. But Dodger was waiting for it. He threw the last of his IEDs into the open maw of the beast. The detonation was immediate and effective, discharging tissue and armored skin in all directions and blasting Dodger off his feet.

The rest of the men descended upon the scene, casting the remaining IEDs into the pit, adding to the carnage. Noah moved quickly, down off the top of the backhoe, running to the edge and lighting the fuel-filled pit. The diesel burst to life, burning hot and bright, sending the Limp Bizkits into fitful death throes.

 The sky filled with acrid black smoke and the fumes of burning flesh choked everyone involved. Angel sputtered awake, complaining with a groan. Carl and Cahill peeled off from the group to check on the boy and Dodger, who had been blown back by the first explosion.

“You ole coot,” Cahill admonished as he knelt down next to his friend. “What were you thinking, using a .22 to defend against that thing?”

Dodger stared up at him in a daze from the ground. His clothes and hair were singed and still smoldering; the skin that had been exposed at the time of the explosion was burned an angry red, but other than the burns and a few abrasions, he looked little worse for wear. “The kid saved my life,” he answered, his voice a hoarse whisper. “I owed him one.”

“We’re even, Dodge.” Angel limped over, his arm wrapped around Carl’s shoulder for support. “We are _so_ even. You need to come see what you did,” he said with a grin.

They carefully pulled Dodger to his feet and brought him to the edge of the pit. There, Sam and Dean were standing looking over the fiery pit of smoldering worm, comfortably warming their hands. The Chloride locals exchanged nervous glances when Dean turned to his brother, saying, "We should've brought marshmallows. I really feel like toasted marshmallows."

Sam rubbed his hands together and nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, some graham crackers, a little chocolate—”

“A couple of cold ones.”

“Typical Saturday night,” Sam smiled.

“This is typical to you guys?” Angel asked, his voice cracking.

Sam’s mouth turned down and he shrugged nonchalantly. “Blood, guts, fire—”

“The smell of death,” Dean added. “Good times. What you gotta understand…Angel,” Dean stifled a chuckle at the boy’s name. “What you have to understand is, any day that you can walk away from is a good day. We learned a long time ago, life is short, so enjoy the little things, whether that’s toasted marshmallows or a beautiful night sky, like this,” Dean glanced up at the moonless starry night. “Or a much needed road trip to Vegas with your brother; it’s the little things that make life…livable.”

Angel raised his eyes to the inky black sky with its stars shining bright like diamonds and shrugged. He stepped up next to Dean and raised his palms to the warm embers of the pit. “Makes sense to me,” he said.

Dean nudged Sam’s side and smirked. 


	9. Chapter Eight

Sam had always found fire mesmerizing. He didn’t remember the fire that had burnt down his nursery, killed their mom and put their feet firmly on the path of an unconventional life, but he knew that Dean remembered it.  Watching Dean as he stared into the dying embers of the fire with wide-eyed intensity, Sam knew that, despite his earlier, post-hunt euphoria, the thoughts circling in his brother’s head now were not good ones. He reached out slowly and clapped a friendly hand on Dean’s shoulder. His brother turned toward him, his face mostly in shadow, save for the side closest to the fire, which was illuminated by an eerie orange glow.

“The others are ready to go now,” Sam said.

Dean nodded, but didn’t move.

“Gotta get Luke to the doctor,” Sam added.

Dean met his eyes then and nodded once, before turning on his heel and walking swiftly over to his quad bike. He waited until Sam was on his, and then nodded to Blake who was behind the wheel of the Jeep. Gentlemen, start your engines.

They drove in convoy; the Jeep, then Dean, then Sam, then Carl on the back hoe. When they reached the tunnel made by the Worm that had tried to attack the farm, Dean’s back stiffened noticeably. And when they reached the hole the Worm had burst out of, he didn’t so much as look at it, just rode straight past. Sam stopped, though. He pulled up to the side and looked down, just in case, but there was nothing, not even blood. Sam swallowed. The Worms were big enough to eat a man whole. He hoped for Ronnie’s sake that it had been quick.

Back at the house, the men all moved about quietly, cleaning and putting away their weapons and washing off the worst of the dirt and blood.

Luke was dazed and tearful, and Sam suspected that it was only the big dose of heavy duty painkillers he’d been given earlier that was keeping full-blown hysteria at bay. He kept mumbling about Brian getting eaten, and Ronnie getting eaten, and why did Ronnie go outside, why didn’t he let Luke go with him?

Eventually, Cahill gathered everyone together. “I’m gonna call the usual crew,” he said, “the town leaders,” he added for the benefit of the outsiders. “We’ll get everyone to meet up at LeRoy’s place in an hour. We’ll talk it through like we did with that Thunderbird mess, decide how we’re gonna handle things with the Law,” he turned to look at Blake and Noah. “You’re welcome at the meeting,” he said. “In fact, I’d like you to be there. That nest site’s on Hualapai land, so I figure the Tribal Council’s gonna want some say on this.”

Noah nodded. “Gonna have to make a phone call,” he said.

Cahill turned to look at Sam and Dean. “You’re welcome too.”

Before Sam could say anything, Dean shook his head. “Hell, no. We just gank the monsters, we don’t stick around for the clean-up,” he inclined his head to one side. “We’ll clean out that Worm nest, though. Tomorrow some time. Then head outta town.”

Cahill looked disappointed, but he nodded his understanding.

They left fifteen minutes later, Carl taking Luke to the town doctor, while Cahill, Dodger and Angel headed straight to the town meeting. Noah and Blake dropped Sam and Dean off at the Impala before following the others to the meeting.  

Dean slid into the driver’s seat with a sigh. For a brief moment he sat gripping the wheel, his head bowed, and then he reached across to the glove box and pulled out his silver flask. He tipped his head back and swallowed deeply, one, two, three, four gulps, and then offered the flask to Sam. Sam shook his head.

Dean shrugged and took another drink. “You reckon there’s a bar open in town?” he asked.

“Doubt it,” Sam said.

Dean nodded. “We could drive down to Kingman. Maybe there’s something open there. We could have a few drinks, play a little pool.”

Sam sighed and translated in his head: _Dean could get trashed and find someone to push into a fight._

“Lu and Kate are expecting us,” he said, allowing a hint of reproach to enter his voice. “Luke is Lu’s nephew. Carl told her we were coming. They’ll be waiting up.”

Dean sighed and took another drink. Sam held his hand out for the flask and when Dean gave it to him, he screwed the lid on and stowed it back in the glove box.

“Buzzkill,” Dean grumbled. But he started the engine.

Lu and Kate were waiting on the doorstep. The Impala was loud at the best of times; in the still, silent desert night it roared like a beast, and their hosts would’ve heard them coming from a mile away.

Dean turned off the ignition and pulled the key out, then sat staring at the steering wheel.

Sam opened his door. “C’mon,” he said. He didn’t wait to see if his brother would follow him; he knew that he would.

Lu hugged Sam at the door and then turned to Dean. Dean’s eyes were tight and his posture stiff and Lu didn’t hug him. She put a hand on his arm and told him how sorry she was; how sorry the town was to hear of the day’s loss of life, especially young Ronnie. They were all grateful, she said, that he and his brother had been in town to help. 

“Didn’t help Virgil or any of that Eric guy’s team,” Dean muttered. “Didn’t help Ronnie. And that was my call. I left him behind to keep him safe and look what happened.

Kate’s eyes filled with tears. “And we’re all shattered. But you _did_ help. And it’s thanks to you that things weren’t worse.” She wiped at her face and then straightened up, her tone suddenly brisk and no-nonsense. “Now, you boys go and clean up properly, take a shower, change your clothes. I’ve got home-made tomato and rice soup on the hob and a loaf of fresh-baked bread cooling on the kitchen table.”

Dean’s eyes were suspiciously bright as he ducked past Sam and headed for the bathroom.

Later, their bellies full and their hearts a little lighter, Sam and Dean folded their tired, aching bodies into the one queen-sized bed. Dean clung to its far edge, his back turned to Sam, and Sam rolled his eyes. He’d shared a bed with Dean enough times over the years to know that he would wake up in the morning with his big brother wrapped around him like a limpet. For all his macho posturing, Dean was a cuddler at heart, especially when he was upset about something.

~~~

They said good-bye to Lu and Kate after breakfast the next morning and drove across town to see Lyn, to tell her that Dean was pulling the Impala out of the rescheduled Car Show, on account of the fact that they were leaving town.

Lyn didn’t look surprised. “I can’t believe we’re still holding it,” she said, “but we’ve got too many tourists here to do anything else. It’s easier to keep ‘em distracted and out of our business if we just go ahead with it. But nobody’s heart’s really in it. Virgil…” her voice broke.

Sam reached out and covered her hand with his. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” he said, “I know you two were good friends.”

Lyn smiled and pulled herself together with visible effort. “On the bright side,” she said, “all but one of the six horses that were part of the search came back. They were skittish as all get out, but Cahill got ‘em all settled into their stalls, they’re eating, and none of ‘em seem to be injured.”

“Blossom?” Dean asked. “Do you know if she made it?”

Lyn shook her head. “I don’t know. But I’m betting Cahill would like to see you before you take off, so why don’t you go and check? Cahill’s property’s just off Prospect Avenue. It’s set back a ways and can be a little hard to find. If you hit Murals Road, you know you’ve gone too far.”

She finished giving them directions and then came around the motel desk and hugged them both. “Don’t be strangers,” she said. “And if you’re ever out this way, you call into town. That fine piece of machinery is welcome to park outside my motel any time!”

~~~

Cahill seemed surprised to see them. “I’m expecting the Sherriff out soon,” he warned. “And if you’re anything like Reggie, I’m guessing you’ll want to stay under the radar.

Dean nodded and rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “Yeah. Hunters and law enforcement don’t always get along. We won’t be long, anyway, just wanted to say good-bye before we hit the road.”

Cahill held out a hand. “Thanks for your help,” he said. “Much appreciated.”

They shook and then Dean mentioned that they’d heard that five of the horses had made it back.

Cahill laughed. “Oh, now we get to the real reason for your visit. I knew those bow legs were a sign there was a bit of real cowboy in you. You were worried about your horse, weren’t you?” He grinned at Dean’s nod. “Well, Blossom made it back just fine. You wanna go and say good-bye?”

Cahill showed Dean into Blossom’s stall and then he and Sam stood outside and made small talk while Dean stroked Blossom’s muzzle and spoke to her in quiet, almost reverential tones. When he came back out Sam thought his brother seemed calmer; more settled than he’d been since they’d fought the Worms.

“You should go and say good-bye to Carl and Luke,” Cahill said as he walked them to their car. “Luke’s real cut up about Ronnie, God rest his soul.”

Dean didn’t want to go anywhere near the Massina farm, but Sam had developed a healthy respect for Carl during their time together and he wanted to say good-bye, so Dean grudgingly agreed that once they’d taken care of the Worm nest, they’d head out there.

Cahill put a hand to Dean’s arm. “Head down Murals Road,” he said, “until you get to the big U bend and then you’ll have to go off road. There’s a track, it’s not bad,” he eyed the Impala speculatively. “I think she’ll cope. Anyway, you’ll be able to park just off the track and go the rest of the way on foot.”

Dean nodded.

“Thanks,” said Sam. He took his wallet out of his back pocket and tugged out a business card. “If you ever need anything…you know, if there turn out to be more Worms, or you get some more Thunderbirds, give us a call.”

Cahill took the card. He looked at it carefully and then raised an eyebrow. “Dr Jerry Kaplan from the CDC? Do I even wanna know?”

Dean grinned and clapped Cahill on the shoulder. “Probably not. C’mon Sammy, we got us a buncha Worm eggs to deal with.”

~~~

Sam had the tourist’s map of Chloride folded on his lap and Dean could see him tracing his forefinger along it out of the corner of his eye.

“Is this the turn off to the track Cahill was talking about? Sam? Sammy?”

“Huh? Oh. No. I mean, yes, but—”

Dean swore. “Dammit, Sammy!” he squeezed the brakes.

“No, no, keep going,” Sam said. “They Murals are just up the road a bit. I kinda wanna see them before we leave.”

Dean gaped at him. “We’re on our way to clean out a monster nest and you want to stop on the way to look at _Art_? Really, Sammy?”

“Shut up,” Sam said mildly. “I saw a tapestry version at the gallery in town and—”

“We’re detouring cuz you _liked the tapestry version_? Oh, okay. After we’ve looked at the mural how about I braid your hair and then we can paint each other’s toe nails?”

Sam rolled his eyes. “If you could stow the Alpha male bullshit for five seconds, Dean, I was about to say that if I’m not remembering wrongly, the mural, which is called ‘ _The Journey’_ by the way, and has one panel sub-titled ‘ _Premonition Scene’_ , has a giant worm running all the way through it.”

Dean’s slack-jawed expression was suitably satisfying.

~~~

Poor Baby.  All this sand and grit really wasn’t doing her any favors. Once they’d finished up in Vegas, Dean was going to have to spend some serious time giving her suspension a good going over.  He glanced at Sam, who was sulking beside him.

“Oh come on, man,” he said. “It was clearly a snake.”

“Could’ve been a worm,” Sam said stubbornly.

Dean shook his head. “It had fangs, dude,”

“The Limp Bizkits had fangs! A whole mouthful of them!”

“Right. The…creature in the mural only had two. Snake fangs, man.”

Sam folded his arms across his chest. “Could’ve—”

Dean smacked the steering wheel. “Oh come on! You’re the Geek Boy! It was a snake eating its own tail! An Ouroboros, man. A symbol of self-reflexivity or cyclicality, of something constantly re-creating itself, the eternal return. Big in Norse mythology. You said that Purcell dude was taking a break from his Fine Arts degree when he painted it? He was probably going through some arty College Boy existential crisis at the time. It’s a snake, man, not a worm.” He glanced sideways at Sam who was staring at him with an irritating little smile. “What?” he grumbled.

Sam’s smile widened. “You wanna braid my hair now?”

“Screw you,” Dean fired back. Beside him, Sam threw his head back and laughed and Dean realized once again just how much he’d missed this simple sparring when Sam had been away at college.

~~~

 Cleaning out the Worm nest was quick and easy. The eggs were obvious, two giant squishy tear-drop shaped cocoons and Dean wasted no time in pouring gasoline over the whole area and setting it alight. They stayed until the fire died down and then smothered the embers with sand.

As they walked back to the car, shoulder to shoulder, Sam leaned into Dean and whispered, “I still say it could’ve been a worm.”

~~~

Luke was sitting on the sofa with his feet up, sipping Morning Dew through a straw and resting his newly plastered arm on a pile of cushions. The television was on, Dr Sexy MD, if Dean wasn’t mistaken, but the kid didn’t seem to be paying much attention to it.

“Visitors, Luke,” Carl said.

Luke didn’t look up.

“How are you feeling?” Sam asked.

Luke shrugged.

“Alright,” Dean clapped his hands together, “well it’s been,” he cleared his throat, “so anyway, we’re heading out now. You take care.”

Luke snorted. “Yeah. You get to just take off. I gotta live here. I gotta walk past where Brian and Ronnie,” his eyes welled with tears and he rubbed at them angrily, “every single day. So good for you. Go.”

“Luke,” Sam sat down next to him on the sofa and looked at him with compassionate, puppy dog eyes. “I know it seems—”

Dean interrupted. “He’s right Sammy. We get to gank the monster and ride off into the sunset; people like Cahill and Carl and Luke here, they have to stick around and mop up the blood. That ain’t easy,” he fixed his gaze on Luke. “What happened to Ronnie, that’s on me. I left him here, that was my call, and for that I’m sorry. So what can I say? Congratulations kid, you’re one of the lucky few who gets to learn what’s really out there and not get dead in the process. And it sucks. Believe me. But there’s no use asking ‘why me’ because there’s no ‘greater plan’, nobody up there cares, it’s just kill or be killed.”

Luke looked from Dean to Sam, an uncertain frown on his face. “It’s okay to be angry,” Sam said. “Dean and me? I don’t think we ever really stop.”

“But once in a while,” Dean added, “we get to slay a monster. That kinda helps.”

Luke nodded. He looked up at Dean, his eyes troubled. “Ronnie made his own choice. He was brave; a real hero. What happened to him, that’s not on you. But he saved my life. _He_ did that.”

Luke’s eyes filled with tears again.     

“You’re right,” Dean said. “He is a hero. So how about we go over to the Worm hole and pay our respects to him before we hit the road?”

Carl came with them and the four of them stood together looking down into the pit. Carl took his Stetson off and held it over his heart. “Yesterday we lost a good friend; a good man. A hero. A—”

“Oh my God,” Luke was staring off over his father’s shoulder.

Dean followed his gaze and saw Ronnie, looking dazed and bewildered, staggering toward them.

“Is he a ghost?” Sam asked lowly.

“Did ya get it?” Ronnie asked, coming to a halt next to them and peering down into the Worm hole.

Dean poked at his arm. He was solid.

“Ronnie! You scared the Hell outta us, son!” Carl threw his arms around the boy and squeezed him tightly.

Sam and Dean exchanged a look. If they were angry enough, spirits could hold onto a corporeal form.

“Do you see a light?” Dean asked the boy.

Ronnie shook his head. “Except for the ten billion sparks flashing behind my eyes, no. Goddamn sumbitch Worm came up outta that hole, swung its body like a giant baseball bat and knocked me into the outfield. I just woke up, barfed, and then saw you all standing over here. My head hurts like Hell. What did I miss?”

“I think he’s alive, Dean,” said Sam.

Carl raised an eyebrow. “What gave it away? Was it the walking and talking?”

Dean laughed. “In our world? That ain’t always proof of life.” He wrapped his arms around Ronnie and hugged him hard. “I thought I’d lost you, boy,” he said in his best Scottish brogue.

Ronnie laughed. “I thought you had too, Sir.”

Dean pulled away from the hug and beamed. “Alrighty, let’s get you home.”

Ronnie nodded. “I don’t think I need to drink from the Holy Grail,” he said, “but I reckon I could do with some Tylenol; my head hurts like a bitch.”

Carl wrapped an arm around Ronnie’s shoulders and guided him toward the farmhouse, telling him that they’d call up his mom straight away and let her know that he was alive and well.

Dean turned to Sam, his smile bright and unrestrained and his eyes dancing. “You reckon if we timed it right, we could drive off into the sunset?” he asked.

~~~


	10. Epilogue

Ah Vegas. A glitzy, glamorous city of neon, nakedness and cash. Dean treated the cashier to his most flirtatious smile as she slid his winnings, two fat bundles of dollar bills, out to him from behind the iron bars. She leaned forwards, her ample breasts making a bid for freedom as she countered his smile with a seductive one of her own.

“I get off in an hour,” she said.

Dean leaned close and licked his lips. “Oh, I’m sure we can manage to get you off more than once,” he peered at her name tag, “Darla.”

Darla’s eyes widened just moments before Dean was elbowed away from the money by his little brother, the Sasquatch.

“In that case,” Sam said, picking up the bundles of cash, “I’ll look after this.” He peeled off a couple of hundred dollar bills and tossed them on the cashier’s bench in front of Dean. “Here’s some spending money.”

Darla looked from the money, to Dean, to Sam. “You know what?” she said, “I just remembered that I’ve got something else on tonight. Y’all have a nice evening now.”

Dean turned to his brother, eyebrows arched and mouth slack. “You,” he spluttered, “you asshole! You totally cock-blocked me!”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Did you see the way she was eyeing off the money? Trust me, Dean, that woman was only interested in one thing.”

“So? I was only interested in one thing too. It was a match made in heaven.”

Sam shook his head. “You can hook up anytime, man. We’re supposed to be doing stuff together.”

Dean raised an eyebrow and glanced back at Darla. “Kinky,” he said, “but if she’s up for it…”

Sam whacked him on the arm. “I found something better,” he pulled a folded up flyer out of his back pocket and handed it across to Dean.

“What’d’ya say?” he said. “You, me, a giant tub of popcorn. You can even get licorice.”

Dean unfolded the flyer and read:

Tropicana Cinema presents

Tremors – The Movie Marathon!

Tremors 1 thru 4 back-to-back!

One night only!

Dean slapped the flyer against Sam’s chest. “No. No way in Hell,’ he stalked toward the exit.

“Aww, come on Dean,” Sam chased after him, the laughter obvious in his voice. “Apparently people dress up and act out each scene in front of the screen.”

Dean shuddered. “Unless I can take my flame thrower, and ‘act out’ torching the people dressed as worms, the answer is no!”

Sam laughed and pulled another folded flyer out of his pocket. “How about this, then? Lynyrd Skynyrd, performing live at Harrah’s. I already bought us tickets.”

Dean stopped in his tracks and then threw an arm around his brother’s shoulders. “Best brother ever,” he said. “I take back everything bad I ever said about you.”

Sam rolled his eyes and then used his height advantage to ruffle Dean’s hair.

Twenty minutes later the boys were sliding into their seats in the front row of the main showroom at Harrah’s, an ice cold bottle of Coors dripping condensation onto the table in front of each of them.

“Hey, Sammy,” Dean said. “What would you say to making this an annual thing? It could be our sacred, annual Vegas pilgrimage.  What do you think? We deserve a little R & R once in a while, right?”

“Sure,” said Sam, lifting his beer and clinking it against Dean’s. “A Winchester brothers’ sacred annual Vegas pilgrimage. Why not? Just, next time, let’s try not to get Worms on the way.”

_**The End** _

__

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 9tiptoes and zara_zee have been each other’s beta readers for three years, but this is the first time they have ever collaborated on a project. It’s been a lot of fun!
> 
> Chloride, Arizona really exists. See their website here: [Chlorideaz.com](http://Chlorideaz.com) This story, however, presents a fictionalized version of the town and its people. As far as we know nothing like this has ever happened in Chloride and all of our characters are completely fictional and bear no resemblance to any real Chloride residents. The Hualapai are also entirely fictional and not at all based on any real-world members of the Hualapai community. Nor have we used any genuine Hualapai myths and legends. 
> 
> Thanks again to [Cassiopeia7.](http://cassiopeia7.livejournal.com) We’ve had such a great time working with you, and you’ve put so much time and effort into your art, which has really brought our story to life. You’ve given us everything we could have ever wanted and more. Thank you.  
> Please run, do not walk to her [Master Post](http://cassiopeia7.livejournal.com/360828.html) and tell her how wonderful and beautiful her art is.
> 
> Thank you for reading our SPN-Gen Big Bang. We hope you’ve enjoyed the story. Please let us know if you do; we’d love to hear from you.


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